PDA Quirks

Michael Gartenberg | November 24, 2003, 08:16 AM

We just finished a major report on PDAs and other handhelds. There were more than a few surprises in the report, not the least of which we can attribute mostly flat growth to the fact that vendors are not “in sync” with users. They are simply building the wrong devices and converging the wrong features. For example, while media integration makes for a great demo, it has no place for most users as an integrated function. (Yes, I know some of you love listening to MP3s on your phone or watching videos on your PDA but you do NOT reflect the mainstream and that is where the money is).

More interesting are the quirks. In the course of the report, I worked with a number of Pocket PCs, all running Pocket PC 2003 software. One device lets me send mail from my Mindspring account. The other doesn’t and gives me an error message. Both are configured exactly the same way and use the same network. One Syncs all my Outlook mail without a hiccup, the other refuses to Sync any mail that has attachments. Again, both are configured exactly the same way. For added fun, both refuse to open my legitimate copies of The Graduate and Slaughterhouse Five for Microsoft Reader. I have the latest DRM and updates. All is configured well and other titles work fine. These open to blank pages. What is causing all these quirks? More importantly how do users resolve them? For fun, I called tech support and they suggested that I re-format my PC, re-install all my PocketPC software and start from scratch. They even said that without giggling, for which I give them credit. Bottom line is to slow down feature creep, focus on customer solutions not engineering technologies and provide fewer features that work better together.