e.Digital Corporation (fka EDIG)

[cksla]

By: JimC1997 $$$$
Reply To: 649408 by mallride $$$$ Tuesday, 27 Mar 2001 at 6:40 PM EST
Post # of 649495


mallride, Palm suffers from the same problem that knocked Apple off the top of the personal computer world back in 1982-83.

PDA display screens are the primary user interface and the Palm-compatible (Palm, Handspring, Visor, Sony) are very inferior to that of the Pocket PC (Compaq, HP, Casio).

The real problem comes from the fact that they are pushing a proprietary operating system which is unfamiliar to Windows users, running on under-powered processors (compared to the 206 Mhz processor in the Compaq for example) and with insufficient memory (2MB-8MB vs 32MB).

Despite the criticism that Microsoft often receives, its operating systems are far more robust and adaptable for application designers. Consequently, the Pocket PC will eventually have many more applications available to it and most will have a very familiar Windows interface for the user.

What does this mean to EDIG? Perhaps not much, but the more powerful the handheld PC, the more likely it is to support digital audio applications. Any expansion of the market for digital music is ultimately good for e.Digital.
We are still at the stage where most consumers are simply not familiar with digital storage of music. They must become comfortable with that concept.

Pocket PCs may not need EDIG, but they may grow into devices which support dedicated music peripherals and I expect e.Digital to get its share of that business.

JimC
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I read your post with interest. while i may be wrong, i believe that palm is not unaware of the problem and is currently taking steps to remedy this problem with the help of IBM, Intel and (edig?). Remember the voice-enabled PALM from a year ago; rumor has it we will be seeing voice-enabled PDAs in 2001.

http://www.chipcenter.com/ejava/mdp/webscan/mn00f/mn00f6d1.htm;$sessionid$IXQLI4YAAEV3ZJ4Y5XDCFEQ
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Palm and IBM Join Forces to Deliver Mobile E-Business Solutions

SANTA CLARA, Calif., and ARMONK, N.Y., Nov. 1, 2000 - Palm, Inc. (Nasdaq: PALM) and IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced an agreement to collaborate on providing mobile e-business solutions to customers of both companies worldwide.

As part of the agreement, IBM Global Services will create a consulting and systems integration competency to focus on developing and deploying business applications for Palm OS® platform devices, such as the IBM Workpad, and related Palm-based data services, such as the Palm.Net® wireless service.

The technology to deliver these solutions is based on IBM's just-released WebSphere Everyplace Suite, which allows mobile devices to connect to the web. In addition, IBM's DB2 Everyplace database, MQ series products, VisualAge Micro Edition Java technology, and Tivoli Device Manager are available to support the Palm OS® platform.

http://www.palm.com/about/pr/2000/110100.html
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Palm shows new OS with wireless voice, data features
By Ian Fried
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
December 12, 2000, 11:20 a.m. PT
video SANTA CLARA, Calif.--Palm on Tuesday released a beta version of its newest operating system--software it hopes will help take Palm devices from electronic organizers to powerful vehicles for wireless voice and data communication....

The company also is in the midst of a hardware migration. Palm has completed the initial effort to port its operating system from today's Motorola Dragonball chip, which is at the heart of current Palm handhelds, to chips based on designs from England's ARM. ARM processors run much faster than Dragonball chips and therefore will allow Palm devices to run more complex applications more smoothly.

http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200-4115961.html
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XScale allowing Intel to StrongARM into Palm handhelds
By Ian Fried
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
August 24, 2000, 5:25 p.m. PT
update Intel's revamped StrongARM architecture, introduced today as XScale, should offer a significant boost to future generations of Palm devices and other handheld computers, analysts say.

Sources say Palm plans to use the low-power Intel architecture in a forthcoming version of its handheld. Palm chief executive Carl Yankowski said in April that Palm planned to use chips based on designs from England's ARM Inc., though he did not explicitly mention Intel's offering.

Gartner analyst Thomas Starnes says it's hard to predict whether Palm will design new versions of its handheld devices using Intel's new XScale chip architecture. But XScale, he says, would be a good choice for a personal digital assistant.

Analysts agree that Intel's flavor of the ARM design is the only chip powerful enough to offer Palm a meaningful improvement on the Motorola Dragonball chips it uses today.

Intel representatives would not confirm the design win, and Palm representatives would not elaborate on Yankowski's earlier comments.

Both XScale and its StrongARM predecessors make use of the ARM instruction set, but Intel has redesigned the processor to offer far more power than standard ARM designs. ....

http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200-2597540.html
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IBM and Intel also announced plans Monday to collaborate on a non-proprietary standard for dashboard telematics, which is increasingly the domain of cell phones and the Internet.

IBM will lend its VisualAge Micro Edition Java application and Intel will lend its Xscale chip architecture to the partnership, in hopes of creating a variety of wireless Internet tools for cars.

"Automotive computing is an important and growing market segment that both Intel and IBM serve with advanced technology and products," Skip McGaughey, director of marketing and sales for IBM's embedded system group, said Monday in Detroit. "We welcome this opportunity to join with Intel to increase the availability of standard Java technology across leading automotive platforms."

http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-3209486.html

While the only announced IBM and Intel X Scale connection relates to telematics remember this Intel exec's comments in a recent interview:

Telematics is the market segment that includes cellular, voice and Internet services in vehicles. I interrupted you. Please keep going.

RON SMITH: That's right, it's in vehicles. It started out with these emergency services like OnStar, which is actually a call back, a voice service. But now people want to move toward more information services to bring the same kind of capability, Internet access, the location-based services, and so on, to a vehicle. We are actively engaged in that. In fact, just recently we announced a relationship with IBM with their VisualAge capability to help bring some more of that software interface directly to these kinds of devices. We have a number of things going on with a number of manufacturers. Of course, none of them are public yet so I can't really talk about them.{GUESS INTEL IS EVEN SUBJECT TO NDAS!}

KAREN LAKE: Is there really any difference in the technology from a car vs. a PDA vs. a cellular phone? Are they all just adaptations of each other?

RON SMITH: They're all just adaptations of each other. You have the same kinds of requirements. You have to be able to maintain the data when the power goes off.