dkessler
Member
Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Plant City, FL
Posts: 385 |
quote:
Originally posted by foo fighter
dkessler, how do you think these Linux based devices will stack up against PocketPC? Are they good enough to give Redmond a run for its money?
Warning: long rambling reply follows 
Prior to the Zaurus I would say definitely not. The Agenda VR3 (Agenda website) is really the only commercial Linux based PDA that has ever shipped and it was never targeted at that market. It was, instead, designed to compete with PalmOS devices, and was actually a very cool device, but poor speed and memory limitations pretty much doomed it (commercially) from the start. The Yopy (G'mate website) set out to raise the bar for PDA hardware capabilities and then had difficulty getting over it. It finally exists, but it's physical design leaves a lot to be desired and it doesn't offer developers the benefit of a well designed application framework guaranteed to be present on all consumer devices.
The Zaurus line, however, is based on hardware very similar to the current PocketPC devices. In fact, apps for the Zaurus are binary compatible with the Linux distribution for the iPaq, so in terms of hardware, it stacks up great against the Compaq, Casio, and HP devices. Software is what's going to make/break the Zaurus. If they could pick up a good set of apps for viewing/editing MS Word/Excel files, they might have a good chance going head to head against PPC.
However, I actually see Linux based PDAs as a bigger threat to the high-end PalmOS market than PocketPC. A market for more powerful PDA platforms that offer more flexibility than WinCE offers definitely exists and is the driving force behind the development of PalmOS 5. These new Linux base PDAs are going to be playing in the same market segment but will benefit from a vastly superior (and open source) OS. Yeah, PalmOS 5 will be able to run legacy Palm apps (which the Linux devices can't do yet) but how appealing is that really? If I spend $500 on a new ARM base Palm, the last thing I want to do is run a bunch of old apps that don't take advantage of any of the new features.
So developers are going to have to invest resources into porting apps to PalmOS 5 and many (like myself) will take a step back at that point and look at the alternatives. From a developer's standpoint, the PalmOS API is an antique. Right now it's downright painful to write anything more than a trivial PalmOS app. The API is not object oriented and forces developers to get heavily involved with details like low-level memory management - something that is both time consuming and error prone. Modern features like VFS are just old-fashioned low-level APIs that are grafted onto the side of the OS and not well integrated at all.
On the Zaurus (and PPC devices running alternative Linux distributions), the combination of a Linux kernel with the Qt/Embedded app framework presents developers with a rich object-oriented environment (not unlike the BeOS that we all loved) that simplifies app development by at least an order of magnitude. It would be impossible for a developer who has a chance to work with one not to fall in love with the device
Add to that the fact that both the OS and all the standard apps are open source and can be used by developers as the foundation of new and better replacements. 3Com actually saw the benefits of this in the early days of the Palm and released the source for most of the PIM apps and large sections of the OS. It's from that source that apps like Datebook4 have evolved.
Some may disagree, but in my opinion it's not Palm or Handspring or Sony that are responsible for the success of the PalmOS platform -- it's the developers (and the customers that support them). PalmOS developers have turned a relatively obsolete hardware platform running a primitive OS into a surprisingly useful device. Similarly, it will be developers who determine the success or failure of Linux PDAs like the Zaurus. Most consumers choose a PDA based on the software they want to run (not vice versa), so if we (the developer community) can create some compelling Linux PDA software and market it well, then the devices that run that software will do well. It's a risky venture (to say the least) for developers and consumers who choose that path. But as a Sprinboard developer, risk has become an old friend
My Zaurus SL-5000D just arrived an hour ago (it's charging now) so once I've had a chance to play with it, I'll post (or link) a review in the "other PDAs" section of VC for anyone that's interested.
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<ul><li>Dave Kessler<br>President - Kopsis, Inc.</li></ul>
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New PDA: Sony, Handera, or Handspring?
01-21-2002 11:11 PM
Not a hypothetical question...
? I firmly agree that the Zaurus is an excellent PDA and just needs software support. However If I can't scrounge up the $500 and justify it to my parents for the Zaurus I'll probably end up going Handera.
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