Hi, I have to agree with Lane that the future for the Pocket PC looks bright. After porting a subset of GUI3000 to the Pocket PC, I have done quite a bit of development on the platform, and people are actually excited about things. The Pocket PC is turning into a good development platform. I also agree that things will really get on a roll when the Bluetooth products start shipping in volume. I am working with a company who will be providing Bluetooth solutions, and they have a queue of customers waiting. Pete "Lane Rollins" <[log in to unmask]> wrote in message news:9qa6jb018rj@enews3.newsguy.com... > I just got back from the Pocket PC Summit in Santa Monica. I haven't seen > this much enthusiasm about a technology in a long while. I really think you > are going to see some amazing things in the next 12 to 18 months. It's a > combination of things coming together. The first is Windows CE is really > starting mature and become a useful foundation for mobile devices. The > second is better use of power all around. The third is the advent of > bluetooth shipping. > > Every developer I talked to was really excited about the latest version of > windows CE 3 for the pocket pc, known as either Pocket PC 2002 or Merlin. It > really seems to help with the user experience and is as stable if not more > so then the last version. The bigger news on that front was the beta release > of version 4 or Taliskar, which should hit the streets in December. The > biggest complaint I heard was the lack of support for the developers. > > On the power front your seeing a lot of developments that will be helping > the battery life. On shipping products like the new HP Jornada 560 series > devices they are using a new chip from Microsemi to do drive the > backlighting of the display. This a lone is extending the battery life up to > 50%. The other big thing coming soon is the Xscale processors coming from > Intel. Peter Green from Intel said that for most application you would see a > 10x improvement in power consumption for processors rated at 200Mips like > the ones today. The 400-500 Mips Xscale processors are going to use less > power then the current 200 Mips Strong Arm processors do. > > Finally bluetooth is going to help with reducing the cabling mess. It's not > meant to compete with 802.11b, even though with the stronger transmitters it > can. It's real goal is to replace IR and cables. It's non directional unlike > IR and has greater range then IR. Today, yes today, you can print to many > different printers, some like the HP DeskJet 995 have it built in or you can > use external adapters to do the same. Some cell phones with embedded > bluetoothm, like the Ericsson R520, can be used as a modem for your pocketpc > with no cableing between them. > > The following section is a from a post from Jason Dunn on his website > www.pocketpcthoughs.com > > I'm currently in the first keynote of the Pocket PC Summit, and Ben Waldman, > the VP of the Mobile Devices Division, is the keynote speaker. He had some > interesting stats that I wanted to pass along: > > . Worldwide PDA market declined 21% overall in Q2, 2001 > . Excluding Palm, the worldwide market grew by 8% (translation: people are > not buying Palms) > . Q2 2000 to Q2 2001: Palm 54% down to 32% > . Worldwide 2001 Q2: Pocket PC is at 35%, Palm at 65% > . Q2 2001 Palm Europe sales: 40.5% > . Q2 2001 Pocket PC Europe sales: 40.6% > > Craig Dewar and Dale Coffing were helping Ben Waldman and they showed off > the 02 Pocket PC phone device - I was totally stunned at how simple it was > for them to connect with the phone, and setup a conference call between two > people. Why does Dale Coffing get to have all the fun? ;-). I can hopefully > get some hands on with the device and perhaps some photos. Ben mentioned > they'd have some "good news" for North American users in a while...we'll see > what happens, but I imagine they'll be announcing a North American GSM > (GPRS?) version, and perhaps even a CDMA version. > > > I've got to agree with Jason the O2 pocket pc/phone is an amazing device. > Great functionality in a very sexy device. The only picture I can find of it > quickly is at > http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/archives/00002445.html#comments. > Microsoft is attacking the convergence of phones and PDA's on two fronts. > There are some like the O2 that are Pocket PC's with phone capability. Then > there are units that are phones with some computing capablity, such as the > "stinger" devices. You can see examples of prototypes on microsoft's > pocketpc.com > > > > Dan Davis wrote > > > I work for a company that does a lot of business with Symbol, and I'd > > like to point out that *most* of what they sell as far as their > > palmtop-turned-barcode scanner devices are actually PalmOS, not > > PocketPC. They only recently started using PocketPC devices, in > > addition to PalmOS that they've used for a while now. It remains to > > be seen which will be the more successful product line > > The symbol people I talked to made it sound like most of the new orders for > devices where coming from the pocketpc side of the product line. I'm > personally not to excited about the 2800 but for route/sales automation type > projects the 8100 seems like a great product. Beyond the stand alone devices > they are making some jackets for the compaq ipaq. At the show they where > loaning out 802.11b pc cards or the 2800 series devices so people could use > the events wireless lan. A lot of people were bumbed out that they didn't > have any CF 802.11b cards to loan out, but right now they can't meet the > demand for the product. > > > I'm still trying to figure out what the > > best deal is in a palm device that can do GPS+MP3+internet/cellular > > access without having to swap cards constantly. > > If you wanted to switch to the dark side try a compaq ipaq with Destinator > GPS system. It does voice prompting on where to turn, with warnings prior to > getting to the actual location of the turn. > > > -Lane > > * To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, * > * etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html * > * To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, * * etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *