If you listen carefully you can hear the rumble of the herd moving. It's not a stampede yet; the ground isn't shaking beneath your feet. But the wind has changed and the momentum is shifting.
I first noticed this momentum shift at the PC Expo computer show in New York. Among other things, I visited the Palm and Handspring "Partner Pavilions" and was surprised by the number of vendors who told me they were developing products for the Pocket PC.
Then, I looked through the last couple of issues and realized that we seem to be reviewing more and more applications that started life in the Palm OS world. The July 2001 issue reviewed the Pocket PC version of HanDBase, a very popular Palm OS database program. The September 2001 issue looked at CityTime world clock, the Skyscape medical references, and the wide variety of medical software available from Handheldmed.com. In this issue, we review the Windows CE version of AportisDoc, Stock Manager, and BugMe!. Our special thanks goes to Palm OS developers for making great
applications...and porting them over to the Pocket PC.
Next, as I worked on this issue's newsBYTES section, I spotted a brief item from Gartner Dataquest. According to their June 18 press release, Compaq will overtake Palm and Handspring combined, in handheld revenues for the second quarter of 2001. Palm and Handspring together are still selling more PDAs, but Compaq, because of the iPAQ's higher price, is generating greater revenue. I realize that revenue and profit are different things, but this is still a significant measure of Compaq's success.
Then, I edited Hal Goldstein's review of Casio's new BE-300 Pocket Manager. Pocket Manager runs the Windows CE 3.0 operating system, but not the Pocket PC applications. Instead, Casio includes its own, less expensive PIM and productivity applications. Pocket Manager is priced under $300 and is designed to compete head-to-head with the Palm and Handspring PDAs. Casio plans to push hard in this niche, and while we don't think the Pocket Manager will bleed off sales from the Pocket PC, Palm and Handspring had better take notice.
Finally, I spent a lot of time working with various authors on this issue's special "enterprise" section. The enterprise section discusses the steps involved in creating an enterprise solution, why people are choosing the Pocket PC, using Microsoft's Terminal Server client with the Handheld PC and with the Pocket PC, and more. Since the Handheld PC Pro was introduced two years ago, the popularity of Windows CE has been growing in the enterprise. In fact, it's probably the only place where Handheld PCs have thrived. That's why we're still seeing new ones being introduced, like the NEC MobilePro 790. Since Pocket PCs were introduced over one year ago, they too have been well accepted in this sector. More and more enterprise solution providers are providing "Windows Powered" solutions for their clients.
As an afterthought, I just counted products and services in our New Products section. There are almost twice as many in this issue as in the last. The rumble of the herd is getting louder.
The stampede is coming!
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