Little Orphan Pocket PC9 June 2003 Longtime readers probably think I'm schizophrenic. They may be right. But just as I bashed Palm around this time last year, now it's Microsoft's turn. Microsoft is set to announce Pocket PC 2003 this month, an update to their PDA operating system. The update sports some much needed changes, a completely new engine under the hood, but is more notable for what it's not than what it is. And if this sounds like I'm talking about PalmOS 5.0, welcome to déjà vu-ville. Pocket PC 2003 looks pretty much the same as Pocket PC 2002, which wasn't all that different -- except to us geek-types -- from Pocket PC 2000. Notable differences are network-oriented, especially the new and improved (really, this time) Connection Manager and a Pocket Internet Explorer that supports XHTML, CSS stylesheets and other advanced web standards. While the above is nice, it's perhaps more notable what Pocket PC 2003 does not offer. There's no easy, "no reset needed" landscape mode (which would have been really nice with the new PIE). There's no resolution independence, or even an increase in screen resolution over the current 240x320. Pocket Word and Pocket Excel are still anemic. While some criticized Pocket PC 2002 as being little more than a facelift for the original Pocket PC, this is even less. After what seemed in 2000 to be a crushing technological superiority over PalmOS, Microsoft has allowed the Pocket PC to languish while Palm has very nearly caught up1. Why? There are several competing theories on why the Pocket PC has been allowed to stagnate. First, and I touched on this a little bit last year, is that Microsoft's Mobile Devices unit may be under internal pressure not to be too competitive with the Windows unit's Tablet PC. Several companies are working on smaller, nearly PDA-sized Tablet PCs running full copies of Windows XP. If Microsoft can get Windows XP and Microsoft Office 2003 into a handheld form factor, why would they compete with themselves by providing handhelds that do almost as much for a lot less money? I'm starting to wonder more than ever if there aren't "strategic" limits on how powerful Pocket PCs are allowed to become. Meanwhile, Microsoft has been very active in trying to get their Smartphone platform off the ground. After what would seem a rocky beginning, the Microsoft Smartphone is starting to gain momentum. Microsoft may have been unable to get any of the "big name" phone makers to sign on2, but they've worked with smaller companies to develop essentially a "system on a chip" phone that any electronics manufacturer can pick up and run with. No longer do you need to be Nokia or Motorola to play in this market. If you have a factory, Microsoft has the design. It's no secret that the smartphone market is booming. Many studies expect it to be ten times or more the size of the PDA market within just a few years. PDAs still haven't become "everyone has one" items but cell phones have. And most of what people use PDAs for can be done by a reasonably good smartphone just as well. For many consumers, a Pocket PC would just be superfluous. They'd already have all their Outlook data in their phone. I know Microsoft sees this. What if they've decided to pour all their mobile resources into Smartphone for the "I just need info on the go" crowd and wait for OEMs to make smaller Tablet PCs for the "I want an office in my pocket" people? Microsoft has been known in the past to be perfectly willing to wait for the market to catch up with their vision. They might be doing it again. If either -- or both -- of the above scenarios is true, it doesn't bode well for the Pocket PC platform. Remember Microsoft Bob? Microsoft can stay in any market pretty much as long as they want, but they will give up on marginalized products. Has the Pocket PC lost its niche, caught between the Smartphone and Tablet PC? Honestly, I don't know. The more important question might be does it really matter? Current Pocket PCs still do the job, right? That's true, but I'm trying to take the long view. I've never been the type to stick with the same tools for more than, say, five minutes or so (I'm back to reading in Palm Reader after a brief flirtation with iSilo, still looking for ebook nirvana on the Palm) but most writers -- heck, even me -- can't afford to buy new devices and new apps every year. If the Pocket PC market dries up, I'm worried about the writers that will find their favorite apps unsupported and no longer updated, unless they shell out the dough for a new Tablet PC. Basically, it's starting to look like Pocket PC will be Microsoft's version of the Apple Newton. One of the guys in my writer's group still uses his Newton today, but he'll admit that selection and support aren't what they were before Apple abandoned the platform. Are Pocket PC users setting themselves up for a similar future? Jeff Kirvin
Jeff Kirvin is available for consulting on mobile technology. Email me today! 1And with the release of PalmOS 6 at the end of this year, Palm might just leap ahead. OS6 is supposed to match the Pocket PC in power and include much of the technology acquired from BeOS. 2Except Samsung, who seems to have a policy of licensing everything whether they use it or not, just in case they want to. |