Registered: Sep 2000
Location:
Posts: 6

I have a couple of things to ask about concerning the Springboard and the modules currently available.

The first thing is concerning the actual Springboard modules themselves. Now, my big question is how much of the the trouble of the speed at which they have been coming out is related to the components. I was probably as amazed as everyone at the speed at which the Soundsgood module is being produces,as it will be on sale within a few weeks of being announced. This compares extremely well with the turtle-like speed at which the first few are coming out, most notably the ones from Innogear (especially the SixPak). James said in one of his articles that we may get a couple of new modules every month, about one a week or so, in the not too distant future. Is that actually possible? Or more importantly, is there a need for it? The thing is, unlike many digital products out there, I see springboard modules as having extremely long lifespans. Creative and S3 come out with new MP3 players every few months with a new feature or two, but I think that once people have an MP3 module, they'll stick with it, unless a major breakthrough comes. People aren't likely to upgrade a 36.6kbps modem module to one at 56kbps, because for the functionality of the modules it isn't worth spending a hundred bucks or so on a minimal change.

Secondly, and some people in the business can probably help, what is likely to happen to the prices of MMC cards in the future. If it is true that Palm's new SD "modules" will run on a variation of an MMC card, is it likely that prices will fall anytime soon?
Also, are the high prices of current modules to do mainly with the cost of flash memory, and are those prices likely to go down?

Finally, about the actual Springboard technology. If an SD converter module was made that could read SD cards designed for the upcoming Palms, could you use any modules created to run on SD card slots that may appear for the Palms. Same thing with Memory sticks with Sony. If that were so, a future Visor sold with these modules out of the box could accept not only Springboard modules, but also all other modules designed for Palm and Sony, giving them an increadible advantage.

Finally, what's likely to happen when UMTS, the super high speed phone network, comes up in the next few years. Would I have to upgrade to a more powerful visor to use any upcoming multimedia features?

Give me your comments or ideas.

Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Plant City, FL
Posts: 385

I can't answer all your questions, but I'll try to touch on a few of them.

Component shortages are definitely impacting time to market. The handheld electronics explosion is certainly straining the supply chains. I talked to Yamaichi Electronics earlier this week about SmartMedia connectors and found that they are currently 20,000 units behind in their production. The situation with flash memory and LCD's is even worse.

Why did the SoundsGood module get to market so quickly? Easy ... they simply didn't announce it until they had units rolling off the production line. They've probably been working on it as long as Innogear has worked on the MiniJam, they just kept it out of the press. There's a lot of strategy that goes into a product announcement. Innogear announced early with MiniJam and got burned bad. But when you know your competitor is hot on your heels, it's tough to keep quiet about what you have in development.

The modules that should start rolling in over the next few months are not new projects, they're things that have been in development for over a year now. As for "version 2" of existing modules, it will probably happen but not so much to get existing users to upgrade but to compete for new users.

As far as MMC prices, I don't expect them to drop significantly until they become obsolete. Manufacturers will switch volume production over to SD before supply of MMC cards can start pushing prices down. As far as Palm's SD support is concerned, no one knows yet if it's going to take the form of a general purpose expansion architecture or just a non-volatile storage solution (since unlike Compact Flash, SD is really just designed for memory cards).

As for interoperability, the SD interface is really just a high speed serial bus, so a Springboard to SD adapter could certainly give you access. The problem is driver software. I don't think you'll see SD on any of Palm's 68K based hardware. Instead, I expect it to show up on the new ARM platform. That means none of the software for it is likely to work on the Visor. A memory card driver is certainly possible since that's a published interface, but drivers for other devices would need the support of the device maker ... and that can be like pulling teeth! Memory Stick has similar problems. You'd have to know how Sony integrated it into the PalmOS and Sony isn't known for being terribly "open" with their technology unless you hand them a check with a lot of zeros on it.

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<ul><li>Dave Kessler<br>President - Kopsis, Inc.</li></ul>