Coverage of the Pocket PC Summit East

[gibsinep]

none here.

Sorry

[Gripsz]

gather all the info you can, i'd like to hear

[rlbogue]

If you've never been to Philadelphia you'll not appreicate the difficulties in just getting to a conference. While my driving didn't kill anyone, there were a few close calls. Once at the conference there were a lot fewer chances of real peril.

A few important things from Day 1 of the conference:

* The Pocket PC sells well when there are heavy-duty/corporate applications that need to be run. In the consumer space the Pocket PC's higher cost is harder to justify.

* Wireless LANs (read 802.11b) are key to Pocket PC Growth. Pocket PCs allow you to stay connected in a building or on a campus through the same wireless LAN infrastructure that was installed to support laptops. With CompactFlash 802.11b cards (like the one that <A HREF="www.socketcom.com">Socket Communications</A> donated to me today) there are numerous solutions that can be created with the Pocket PC platform that are not practical on the Palm platform.

(Sidebar: It's technically possible to use the 705 Palm and the Palm VII in a wireless environment, however, this requires a per device charge per month which is not true when using the wireless LAN capabilities that the Pocket PC supports. Also, Wireless LAN is much faster.)

* Gartner's presentation presentation caught some attention as they started discussing the entire PDA market ... including Palm.

* The conference has implemented an 802.11b network that allows any attendee to access the internet and the show Intranet from any room or presentation.

Today was a light day because the expectation was that some attendees may still be traveling and trying to get to the conference.

-- More Tomorrow --