“Microsoft aims to kill BlackBerry,” an insider told CRN. “Every corporate type has a BlackBerry, and they all have Outlook. What is the cost going to be to RIM Server when Exchange Service Pack and Magneto come out and they’re not priced? Microsoft is giving it away for free.” Read the article at TheRegister. On a related PDA note, this is the best PDA deal on the web judging from the feature-set and extra free accessories included (note: we are not affiliated with that shop in any way). There is also a hack available to update that Dell Axim X5-Advanced model to Windows Mobile 2003.
Microsoft goes after Blackberry with Magneto
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Thanks for the link! This is indeed a great deal. The free accessories cost at least $80 alone, so having the PDA for just $100 (new!) is a mighty deal. Its features are good: SD slot, 400 Mhz, 64/48 MB RAM/ROM, QVGA color screen, microphone etc. Wish it had some WiFi or Bluetooth though, as it’s not easy to find SD cards that do wireless as easy and cheap you can for CF cards.
That might be a good deal if that PDA wasnt such a POS. I had one. biggest piece of crap you will ever buy. Mushy dpad, horrible job wheel. screen isnt that great etc etc etc.
Your post reads like FUD. The x5 forums on aximusers.com and aximsite.com have a different story to tell.
… My current windows mobile phone (running WM2003SE) requires a soft reset two to three times a week. With no other phones (or PDA phones) have I seen this happen. I doubt it happens in Blackberries, so unless WM2005 is way more stable I doubt it will be a BES killer
Same happens to me on my PalmOS 5 Clie, PalmOS is nothing better (and I find my Win2003SE more stable btw). Here is what I think, in terms of stability:
PalmOS 4/5 is like MacOS 8.
Win Mobile is like Windows 95.
In other words, both suck in terms of stability.
And yet, with Zaurus not selling in US anymore at normal prices (Dynamism’s prices are too high for most), still, that’s the best we can have on a PDA today at a reasonable price.
I don’t know about Blackberry, I have only used their emulator. My father-in-law uses a new Blackberry/Phone and he seems to like it a lot though.
I just got a Treo 600 off eBay and I’ll be using snappermail to read my email from the IMAP server running on my home machine. Blackberry, schlackberry.
The X5 has CF and SD slots.
Even better then.
With its old dirty tricks of cutting out the competition….
They did it with Netscape, they will do it with FireFox and now with Palm/Symbian & Linux OS.
Props to the Treo homies.
Extremely happy with my T-Mobile service. Global SMS, great data service. The camera works well, but isn’t essential.
Bought the wife a GPS kit for her copy, and it works great.
My biggest complaint is that there is no stylus holder on the external keyboard (read: we’re reaching deep to find something to whine about).
Now, I understand that some of these PocketPC gadgets can run Emacs, but do we _really_ need another Redmond product that badly?
yeah, it probably did sound like FUD. but its not. I guess it’s a case of YMMV… The unit *I* had was a POS
there, that better sounding?
My blackberry crashes often. Sometimes, the phone rings, non-stop! I power off, reboot, no luck. I poweroff, take off the battery, wait five minutes, put battery back, reboot, no luck!For a company that has been around this many years, the product sucks.
You can install Familiar Linux on several PocketPCs. I considered this but decided against for three reasons:
1, I’d still be paying Microsoft.
2, that way you can’t get a combined PDA / phone, as Familiar doesn’t support any of those yet.
3, life’s too short.
🙂
cell phones are reaching their scalability limit, while PDAs have just begun to hit the road. The one things holding PDAs back as a feasible replacement for the cell phone is ubiquitice Wifi and VoIP services.
Man, I remember that
I installed familiar on my iPaq 3870. oy!
Once I went through the dependency inferno and I got MOST things working, my BT and SD would not work I just reinstalled WM2003 on it :p
the world disagrees with you. PDA sales are dropping every year, while smartphone sales are increasing. Of course, there’s an overlap as to what you call a Treo or a Blackberry, but the overall trend is clear. People want PDA stuff in a phone, not phone stuff in a PDA.
which sucks. i hate smartphones
guess ill be using my netbook for years to come. thank god it has a linux port. very usuable system.
I have a blackberry 7230 phone device and love it. There is no other combination phone/qwerty keyboard device that is as sleek, reliable, and works as well. I’ve tried a treo, and a new windows mobile piece (a very slick looking siemens w/ a slideout keyboard), but the only features I’m interested in are voice and email, as well as reliability and sleekness in my pocket. I’m not saying there will never be a windows mobile device that is sleek and reliable, I’m saying until there is, MS wont displace RIM. People love blackberries for the hardware device, not for the middleware that 90% of the users don’t know about.
Gonna get either a sony ericsson P910a or the S710 model I believe. Nuff said.
Exactly my sentiments.
Having reliable email (and pin-ing) on your hip is very very useful. I’ve hated my last dozen cell phones. This is the first electronic device that I’ve become addicted to in many many years. I can’t imagine to returning to not being able to dash off an email wherever I am.
On that thought, brings me to my next….don’t mean to sound like a OSS-fanboy, but blackberry should just completely opensource their whole middleware package. Ultimately RIM will make more money on hardware and service sales, then on selling BB-Enterprise.
Once open-sourced, I could forsee BB sales booming. Imagine all the uses mid-size (and large) companies could dream up. Cable guy punches in the invoice on-site once installation is complete…Executive checks the status of his assembly line while on the road….sales force automation, etc, etc, etc.
I think the BB-Enterprise is a stupid thing to sell, and they are shooting themselves in the foot for not just giving it away.
After trying out Familiar I just sold mine. Palm is the only decent PDA out there for me (stylus based).
Really, what isn’t M$ going after to kill off ???
*you* like the hardware. *management* likes the middleware.
Smart phones ? Ugh. You can keep them.
Zaurus doesn’t need incessant booting.
Netbook what a lovely machine.
Neither killed by the gorilla
“With its old dirty tricks of cutting out the competition….
They did it with Netscape, they will do it with FireFox and now with Palm/Symbian & Linux OS.”
Actually in the case of Palm they pretty much shot themselves in the foot. They went and bought BE and so far haven’t done much with them. That was a big investment which so far hasn’t shown much in the way of benefits.
Couple that with the lack of any new devices that use Cobalt and gov have a recepie for fuilture with no Microsoft required.
I am the management. I bought the BES server because of the hardware. Does anybody really like middleware? I don’t – it cost me $1,000 for the BES server, and two of us use it. My IT guy who administers the software also does not like it, as it is an extra piece of software to administer, and another potential source of problems. I wish the functionality was built into our exchange server. (though I don’t like exchange server either, but thats a whole other ball o wax).
I guess you don’t have a big pile of employees you need to keep in line, then – from my experience (I get to watch plenty of people with blackberries in elevators), it’s used as a sort of remote whip to keep the herd in line, and because it’s push email nobody can argue they just didn’t check their messages…:)