Recent news has covered the release of many new smart phones. We have the new Treo650, the new Sony P910, the new Audiovox PPC 6000, the new Blackberry 7100, and the new Nokia 6670. Recently, I've been speaking via email almost daily with my AT&T (now Cingular) rep. For some reason, the conversation always steers towards his wanting to push the latest from Nokia, Blackberry, etc.Granted, Audiovox is new to the smart phone market and Sony's aren't the most popular, but for some reason my AT&T rep seems to treat the Treo line like a red-headed step child (no offense meant or implied to person's with red hair and/or those adopted or inherited through marriage). This is interesting considering tha the Treo600 is the most sold smart phone for 2004. Blackberry comes in second and the others almost aren't on the radar.
Granted, I've heard a lot of bad things about Treo's. Many have needed to be replaced, some more than once. There've been both hardware and software issues. But this must also be taken in perspective. Palm is to the PDA market what Dell is to the PC market. And Palm is to the embedded OS market what Microsoft Windows is to the PC operating system market. Dell just recalled over 1,000,000 notebook power supplies. And Microsoft releases fixes to bugs and security issues monthly. So, when Palm has the largest market share of PDAs and smart phones, is it unexpected that they will also have a larger number of issues and returns/replacements than their competition? I don't think so. Also to consider, the Treo600 has been on the market for over a year now. I'm not hearing a lot of complaints about the newer versions of the 600 as I did originally. This should be taken into consideration since new devices often have more bugs than older ones (consider why many companies are still running Windows NT. It may be old, but its been around so long that most of its issues are resolved or at least known).
So after going back and forth with my AT&T rep via email, I finally sent "the long one" (email) about why I think Palm OS based devices are a better choice for both the enterprise and the personal user. His response was, "That is the best reply to a device I have ever received from a customer!", which is what has prompted my writing this article. Basically though, I've simply taken the sum of my last two emails to him and wrapped them up for easier reading.
The Treo600/650 isn't just a smartphone. Its a PDA with a Palm OS and a host of available applications. Personally, I like the new Nokia's, the new Sony, and even the new Blackberry. Each has its pros and cons. Some look nicer than others. However the majority of these all run either the Symbian OS or Windows Mobile Edition. The PalmOS is 10 years old and 90% of older apps made for Palm 1.0 still work on the newer Palm OSs (granted, the Palm 1.0 apps are black and white and make not look nice on a newer Cobalt-based system, but many of them still work. A good example is STRIP. STRIP is a password storage tool for PalmOS. It has been updated much over the years, but it runs equally well on my old Visor Edge, my Treo600, and one of other Palm PDAs that's so old I can't even remember its name.
In contrast, Symbian has almost no add-on softwares, and of the ones that do exist the vast majority are not free. Windows Mobile has some, but its still a relatively new OS that is new to the mobile phone market, and therefore doesn't have the available applications that the Palm OS has. And, like Symbian, the majority of applications for Windows Mobile/Windows embedded are not free. Many Palm softwares are free. That makes the Symbian and Windows based smart phones really nothing more than cellular phones that can sync email, contacts, etc. Its the available software that sets the Palm apart.
Let me give you some examples:
As a sysadmin working with both Linux and Windows systems, I want to be able to remotely control both operating systems. So with a Palm-based device with a wireless internet connection (GSM/GPRS/CDMA), I'm halfway there. Now I just need software. To access Linux systems, I need an "ssh client". So go to google and search for "ssh palm os". We see multiple pages of results including at least 3 that are SSH2 capable and free to use. To remote my Windows systems, I need to VPN into my office to a Windows 2000 PPTP server, then use Terminal Services. Google searches for "vpn client palm os" and "terminal services client palm os" both get hits. Yes, I may have to pay for these softwares, but they exist. So now, from a single device I can sync my Exchange email in realtime via GoodLink, I can check personal email (pop/imap) from the built-in Palm email client, I can remotely access my systems with a VPN client, and I can remotely control them via SSH and Terminal Services, including the ability to remotely reboot them if necessary. And all this doesn't even begin to include the plethora of free games, media players, themes, etc. available for both free and purchase for PalmOS.
- "Smart Phones vs. The Others, Page 1/2"
- "Smart Phones vs. The Others, Page 2/2"
