Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Access Anywhere, Anytime. Cell Phones/PDA's join the Net -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DOUG H who wrote (50)	7/17/1999 3:37:00 PM
From: gdichaz	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 332

Dough H: Since I am a long term Qualcomm investor, I hope MSFT and the Q's joint venture "Wireless Knowledge" is very successful. I do not have any direct knowledge of Win CE as a means of controlling small handheld devices. Just hope that some real competition continues in the handheld devices / phone access to the internet. A replication of MSFT dominance a la the desktop does not seem to me to be best for open system (or proprietary) innovation. That is why the current lead of Palm Pilot and the possibilities of Symbian appeal. Competition is good at this point IMO. The more the merrier IMO - as long as Win CE doesn't get a stranglehold early and kill off effective competition with $$$$s and hard ball marketing.. Chaz

To: DOUG H who wrote (50)	7/17/1999 8:01:00 PM
From: Mark Oliver	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 332

Just curious, but do your waiters walk around with a device taking orders, or do they return to an input terminal to enter an order? If they are walking around with devices, or PDA's, are they connected on a Wireless LAN? To me, Win CE has the advantage of easily porting Win 95/98 software, and a look and feel that people are already comfortable with. There are also issue of integration into a network which you describe. All this make the Win CE look like a good product. Regards, Mark

To: DOUG H who wrote (50)	7/18/1999 4:01:00 PM
From: Scott C. Lemon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 332

Hello DOUG H, > Does anyone here think that Win CE is a good technology? Outside of > the MSFT jugernaught, what if any advantage does it have? I thought I'd throw in a couple of remarks ... I do think that the WinCE devices are very impressive. I'm a Pilot user (3Com), but I have also been following the progress of the WinCE devices and I believe that they are becoming more and more impressive. Microsoft has always understood the power of the developer community to build applications. And applications drive the acceptance of a platform. Microsoft has an extremely rich development environment on Windows (95, 98, and NT/2000) and has strived to replicate a lot of that on the WinCE platform. They have extensive developer tools which have been refined over the years for usability, etc. I think that if 3Com doesn't keep moving, they are going to see increased competition from the WinCE devices. It's not just wireless access ... its the apps and the number of developers. I'm starting to think that many of the Linux portable boxes that are showing up are going to have more chance than the Pilot! The only real competition that I see for WinCE is from Symbian with their EPOCH OS. Symbian (related to Psion) has now signed the key cell phone manufacturers (Nokia, Motorola, Ericcson, and Matsushita(?)), and received investments from them, and will have a corner on 85% of the cell phone market. I believe that the key to their success will be to create the appropriate developer tools and to get people programming to it! Scott C. Lemon