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- Visor General Chat (http://discussion.visorcentral.com/vcforum/forumdisplay.php?forumid=31)
-- Springboard Module Manufacturers have been hit a low blow (http://discussion.visorcentral.com/vcforum/showthread.php?threadid=20858)

Maybe its time Visorcentral starts up ClieCentral or something. It may be about time to jump ship.

Re: no Treo

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Originally posted by BillC
I've spent a small fortune on Visor PDA's and springboards. If Handspring abandons me, they'll make an enemy for life. I'll rot before I'll buy a Treo.

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That's what I wanna mean!

TELL HANDSPRING!

I hope everyone is sharing their sentiments with Handspring, also....

Unless Handspring mispoke, this the beginning of tghe victory of the WinCE machine.

The ultimate fate of the Visor depended on their be able (or Plam being able) to update the OS. Hardware tricks like the slot and the edge are wonderful at the overpriced mac level, but not at the PDA level.



The next step PDA is already fairly obvious form the SW POV. The desktop PDA SW in the Pam is very dated ... it needs full linking, better integration with the desktop, etc. Microspft is in a postion to do that with WinCE but the PlaOS is not going to go there.

As for trying to sell telephones?? That is absurd. If HS can not compete in a marlket where they have 30-40% market share how are they going to compete with Eriksen, Nokia, Sony ????

The teo is like some Mac-toy ... without Steve Jobs ... but with the full competitve power of Sony, etc there to imitate any cleaverness in the design.

Moreover, compare the treo wiht the less-than-the-state-of the-art Sprint/scmusg phone I use now! My phine offers full voice control, browsing, etc. It is hard to see why I would want the TREO but f did I man ot gong to pay anymore than I paid for this cell phne and not soon.

HS future

Remember that Donna said HS was moving toward "communicators." This may just be their way of saying that all futurte Visor devices will be either phone/organizer blends (like Treo), or organizers with Bluetooth capabilities, which can "communicate" wirelessly with other organizors, PC, networks, etc.

quote:

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Originally posted by Stevesm
If HS can not compete in a marlket where they have 30-40% market share how are they going to compete with Eriksen, Nokia, Sony ????

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quote:

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Moreover, compare the treo with the less-than-the-state-of the-art Sprint/scmusg phone I use now!

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My blog: Pocketfactory

I'm personally glad I didn't invest too much in my Visor (Sylus 5-pack, Innopack 2/V). My next device will probably be either Zaurus or some kind of Palm device from either Palm or Handera (I dislike Sony).

foo fighter wrote:

I saw this coming back in the spring of 2000, when the first modules started hitting the market.

Actually, there were no modules in the spring of 2000 -- at least, not the most anticipated ones: the SixPak, GPS, MP3, digital cameras, wireless solutions, etc. These only started to hit the market in the late summer of that year. A full year had passed before there was an even moderately compelling selection of Springboards to choose from.

My cries were met with shrugged shoulders when I warned that consumers will never spend $250 or more on a handheld, and then spend another $250-$400 for a "module." If a consumer wants a device that can be used as an MP3 player, they will buy a device that has that feature built-in. It's a shame that so many really brilliant ideas never took off, but those are the hazards faced in the business world.

There was an enormous demand for the MiniJam prior to its ever-delayed released, evidenced by the spleen poured out by furious would-be customers on VC boards. Whether you agree with the value of or logic behind the module (by the way: it's a module, not a "module") is irrelevant; I don't understand why people buy Britney Spears' CDs. What is relevant is that thousands of the million Visor owners one year on did want to buy the module, even at $250.

What killed the Springboard market more than anything was the release of too few modules, too late, and with too many bugs in design or implementation. There was no MemPlug in the spring of 2000, no eyemodule2, not even a simple voice recorder. Needless to say, other killer apps like the SixPak or the Xircom wired ethernet module never saw the light of day.

The biggest mistake that people here make when analyzing Handspring is putting personal emotion before business principles. I keep hearing you guys say that as long as HS keeps making wonderful devices like the Edge, Neo, and Pro...they will be here for the long run. But the reality is that HS doesn't make enough money off these products to stay in business.

I do not and have never understood the appeal of the Edge, but I do understand the logic of the Neo and the Pro from a business point of view. Margins on the Prism, with its expensive display technology, are too thin to sustain further price cuts. Lower-end monochrome units derive their margins from falling RAM prices.

I absolutely agree that making wonderful devices do not equal success. I would take your point to its logical conclusion. You can make a truly wonderful device that's everything to everyone -- small, color, hi-res, multimedia, etc. -- and still fail by combining high production/R&D costs with a low retail price. And don't mention Sony unless you can show me the company's profits on Cli�s (as opposed to profits companywide), not sales. If nothing else, Sony has found the killer app for its Memory Stick that been lacking for so long.

Until someone can provide me with real data showing profits on the respective handheld product lines for diversified companies like Compaq, Sony and HP, I remain unconvinced that the iPaq, the Cli�, and the Jornada are any more profitable than the Visor, which costs far less to manufacture (excluding the Prism) without active matrix TFT screens, high-speed CPUs or Flash memory. Since Handspring subsists entirely off of handheld revenues, unlike the aforementioned companies, Handspring is, indeed, in a terrible position.

My prediction that Handspring will go bankrupt may be unpopular, but it is the most likely scenario. Many of you will disagree with that, but you are basing that resistance on your affinity for your Visor. You believe that a company as hyped and well known as Handspring could NEVER go out of business. Unfortunately, they can. Yesterday's announcement should be sobering to everyone as to how bad off Handspring really is.

It's entirely possible that HS will go bankrupt. My own doubt of that scenario has nothing to do with any sentimental attachment to the Visor, but my gut feeling about the Treo being the Next Big Thing. We'll see soon enough.

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Eye of Gameboy