X-no-Archive:yes
I posted some out-of-date information.

What I'm remembering was some news stories from the launch of CE 3. Sure
enough, someone trotted out the joke about MS getting it right on the third
try or in the third version. But what I found most remarkable at the time
was Judge Penfield's public decrying of the launch itself, saying that MS
was trying to do to (then) 3Com's Palm line what they had done to Netscape,
and similar outrageous rantings (fans of Penfield please reply off-list).
The articles I read at the time included quotes from both sides. My favorite
was the observation that Penfield seemed to believe that those who competed
with MS should not have to compete against them. The articles also pointed
out that CE's market share was unusually small. I misremember it being 17%;
while I doubt that number is exactly right, I believe it to be close enough.
It was a mere slice of the larger pie.

Ironically, CE seems to have made great in-roads since then, and Penfield
seems to have been right, at least about CE becoming a serious challenge to
Palm OS devices. I had hoped that Denys would say even more than he did
about the reasons for its success. I have my own ideas. Denys's car analogy
is pretty good. One only has to look around to see people driving cars that
one could not imagine wanting to own, for one's own reasons. Personal
preference seems to ensure market share to the second runners up, and there
is the "it's not from Microsoft" factor. But I would suggest that Palm
Pilots may be an easier personal decision than they are a corporate decision
(and I by no means begrudge QSS their success with Palm Pilots), because an
individual can more intelligently choose what they can afford, support, and
live with, with less risk. I would expect companies to choose CE, especially
when the decisions are being made by people who barely understand the
technologies. MS enjoys a certain reputation as a safe bet. We can expect
the tools that support CE to be around for a while. And now, for folks like
Stan who want a portable device that can be nearly identical with their
desktop, there is the Tablet PC, running Win98, NT, or XP, depending on your
vendor.

Disclaimer: I've never owned a Palm Pilot. I've owned a Philips Velo HPC
running CE 1 and 2, and my wife was the Everex Palm PC running CE 2. I have
yet to own a CE 3 device, although I too liked the look of the Vadem Clio /
Sharp Tripad. Given a blank check today, I would go with the new Tablet PC
for personal use.

Greg Stigers
http://www.cgiusa.com
the blank check would need to be signed,
and on an account with adequate funds

* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *