Comments on: Palm Pre is close, but no cigar

By: Josh G

Josh G — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 06:32:33 +0000

WinMo sold 20 million handsets last year. The iPhone sold 10 million. WinMo isn’t a dying platform just yet, and with Windows 7 and everything else, Windows is shaping up to make a comeback in a big way.

I love what Palm have done here. The Pre is sexy, it’s fast, and it seems to be really stable. It’ll be interesting to see how it fares in the GSM world

By: renantech

renantech — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 05:08:14 +0000

wow nice phone I like it.. I think it is so expensive.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 04:35:18 +0000

Wow, Kent, you really take your email address seriously.

By: John

John — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 03:50:37 +0000

(continued)

I hope that I am wrong and that Palm carries on with the attributes of relative simplicity of use and robustness that I have come to rely on both personally and professionally.

By: Kent Pribbernow

Kent Pribbernow — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 03:34:13 +0000

Yes, Dell did agree to do that…as part of MONEY deal (i.e. Microsoft paid for space on Dell’s hard drives). That’s hardly an endorsement. Windows Live is a joke, especially search. Google owns that space for good reason — their ecosystem is BETTER. And for that reason Microsoft is in decline.

Live, much like every other project Microsoft invests in these days, is merely a response — not an innovation. If Google entered the toilet paper business today Microsoft would buy up Proctor&Gamble and be printing rolls of Windows Live shit paper by Friday morning without even fully comprehending why. Look at their schizophrenic business strategy over the past 3 years: Google seach>Live Search — Google Docs>Office Live — cloud computing>Windows Live Services — Adobe Flash>Silverlight — iPod>Zune — Vista>OSX. All were responses — and all were inferior to rivals.

The only intellectual property Microsoft has executed well is Xbox, and that even was due is no small part to Sony’s blunders.

Windows 7 the most eagerly awaited version since 95? Who spiked your Kool-aid? 7 is a bailout package — a hasty effort to wipe away the failure of Vista. I’m running the build 7000 right now. It’s largely what Vista should have been from the start — MUCH faster, more stable — but still Windows — an ecosystem in its waning days. Win32 application environment is dated and applications written for this platform are showing their age now. Look a typical desktop app in Vista and compare it to a Cocoa app under Leopard. They are worlds apart. OSX apps look gorgeous, with powerful composition layer and OpenGL graphics. Microsoft attempted to clone that experience with a hack job rendering engine in WPF. Only problem is developers are refusing to develop for it, opting instead to continue writing apps in the XP era Win32 model. The result is the same ugly dated-looking app running inside a shiny translucent window frame. Garbage.

As for Windows Mobile — it now earns the honor of “least desirable smartphone platform”, looking all the more obsolete by Apple and Google. iPhone is outselling WM, RIM, and the market will see a slew of Android handsets this year. Microsoft’s share of the mobile pie will shrink right along its share of the browser and desktop markets.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 02:09:16 +0000

Who says the market is moving away from Microsoft’s ecosystem? Dell just agreed to replace Google stuff with Live Essentials, Windows 7 is the most eagerly anticipated version of Windows since 95, and nothing can touch Live Mesh for cloud sync. Microsoft is making some of the best software on the market today, but some people have their minds so already made up that they don’t realize it.

By: Kent Pribbernow

Kent Pribbernow — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 02:01:22 +0000

It’s amusing to that you’ve invested yourself in Microsoft’s ecosystem at a time when the market is moving away from it.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 00:01:59 +0000

I can’t tell you what Microsoft has in store for Windows Mobile, but I’ve seen some of it, and it’s pretty darn cool. And, unlike Palm, it has a full ecosystem of other applications and services from Microsoft to back it up. It’s a shame, really. Palm gets the fact that integration is everything, but they don’t control what they integrate with the same way Apple, Microsoft and Google do.

By: Harold

Harold — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 23:07:50 +0000

Jeff —

I think you’re wrong. Windows Mobile will be old by the time the Pre emerges, and there will be no new version on the horizon, as Microsoft will be focusing on getting Windows 7 out by year’s end.

I also think the target markets are different. They may be compressed, but they are different. I know lots of folks who have WinMo phones but no data plans (and no real use for the Windows Mobile on their phones).

I know you have come to love that platform, after many years on garnet. I think you’ll be back by the end of 2009 and running WebOS.

Harold