Hands On - PDAs - Psion v WinCE

Coincidentally, both the Symbian and WinCE developers' conferences were held within days of each other in June. Attending both seemed like a perfect opportunity to compare and contrast the development potential of both platforms. In turn I felt that this might allow me to deal with the 'ultimate question' that seems to be cropping up more and more frequently.

The ultimate question has several forms, but they all boil down to the same thing:

'I want to buy the PDA that will ultimately survive, so should I buy a Psion or a WinCE machine?'

(I realise that Symbian and Psion are not the same company, but then they aren't exactly rivals either!)

I found an answer (and I promise it won't be 42).

The Symbian conference was held on a Thursday and Friday in London, the WinCE conference began in Denver on the following Sunday and ran till Wednesday. For a start, the sheer difference in size was boggling.

- How big?

The Symbian conference boasted about 426 attendees, 24 speakers' sessions and seven supporting artists (companies like Purple Software, which develop and sell software for the platform).

The WinCE conference claimed 2,000+ attendees, more than 90 speakers' sessions/labs and about 135 supporting artists.

So the WinCE conference was much larger and longer, a factor that is important because the more attendees and supporting artists, the more software is going to be developed for that particular platform.

- Who were the attendees?

The suit/sandal ratio is a worthwhile indicator. A low suit/sandal ratio suggests that a conference is going to be fun and technical; a high ratio suggests that big business has become interested in the topic. The suits are looking for ways to make money that means some of the fun will be replaced by financial considerations. I reckon that the Symbian conference was low - enthusiasts were noticeable by their presence. However the ratio at the WinCE conference was stratospheric: so high that other attendees were, unbidden, commenting on the lack of open-toed footwear.

- Which companies wanted to align themselves with which conference?

Ericsson, Motorola, Matsushita, Sun, Metrowerks, Nokia, Psion Enterprise, Psion Computing, Oracle, Sybase and ARM were at the Symbian conference and all the manufacturers of handheld devices (Casio, HP etc), together with IBM, Sybase, Oracle etc (in other words, lots of others) were at the WinCE conference.

So telecomms was well represented at the Symbian conference.

- What did they want to tell us?

Psion talked about the new Psions - the 32-bit Series 5mx has a new half-VGA width back-lit screen, a stylus and a touch-type keyboard, 16Mb RAM, a CompactFlash card slot, a 36MHz ARM710T RISC processor. All of this is in a device weighing 354 grams and with a claimed battery life of a month on 2 AA batteries. There's also a Java Virtual Machine on the CD that ships with the Series 5mx. Wow.

If that wasn't enough there was the netBook, claimed to be the world's first truly mobile network computer, incorporating 100 per cent pure Java technology. This is more of a virtual device at present but promises, over time, to provide a range that will include a choice of quarter, half and full VGA resolution screens, pen and keyboard driven tablet and clamshell devices. The netBook features Psion's first implementation of colour on a full VGA screen, with pen-driven navigation and data input, together with a standard QWERTY keyboard. There's also a PC card drive and a slot for either a compact flash card or disk drive. Double wow.

The WinCE affair had two keynotes. Harel Kodesh, VP of Microsoft's Productivity Appliance Division, told the assembled developers what they wanted to hear - that they were the chosen ones. Predictably, this went down a storm.

Then he told them things like 'the emerging information appliance industry promises to enable form factors and scenarios that are currently not possible with today's software and hardware'. I was left wondering what exactly a 'form factor' was and whether the word 'scenario' wasn't due for a rest by now.

So far, a perfectly normal keynote from Microsoft, but then, without any warning at all, something of substance appeared. A 'demo' of Windows CE running on a petrol pump. The pump talks to the server in the station by email, from the station you can browse the state of the pump using TCP/IP and HTML.

Technically, the information was fascinating, particularly as we were assured that this wasn't vapourware, this was an operational system. But Kodesh spoilt it all by saying that the pumps 'revolutionise the consumer experience' - meaning that they showed the customer Coke advertisements while dispensing petrol (really, I'm not kidding). He clearly hadn't spotted the word 'developer' in the conference title. Then again, perhaps he had noticed the suit/sandal ratio ...

Bob Muglia, senior VP of Microsoft's Business Productivity Group, gave the other keynote. He spoke mainly of the company's overall strategy, some of which actually had relevance to mobile computing, like the fact that the entire Microsoft site at Redmond is destined to move to a wireless network within a year. This is mainly as an aid to the use of PDAs on the site - which, as an aside, seems to indicate that Microsoft is genuinely interested in the use of PDAs and not just interested in selling WinCE.

So, Psion talked about new hardware; Microsoft, as it so often does, talked mainly in 'global terms', but it also demonstrated WinCE being used in a real life commercial application where it runs as an embedded system.

- Where were the best toys?

Here there was no contest, the WinCE conference simply wins hands down with desirable toys, both hard and soft.

- Which event had the best development tools?

If I were a professional developer for the PDA, there is no doubt which platform I would choose. WinCE scores again.

So, what conclusion did I come to about the future of PDAs after overdosing on their conferences?

Before answering, please forgive me for indulging in a brief historical review. Microsoft rose to power by developing an operating system that ran on PCs. PCs are essentially all BBBs (Boring Beige Boxes), so the company that controlled the OS controlled the market. Then Microsoft went on to control the software and on and on. 'Nuff said.

Meanwhile, in the PDA world, there were no BBBs because the technical margins were so much tighter. The challenge of optimising battery life, machine size, machine style, screen readability, software stability, software functionality, memory requirements, etc, defeated some companies completely.

Two succeeded brilliantly - Psion and US Robotics (PalmPilot). Both of these firms bit the bullet and developed an OS and a machine that were tightly integrated. Only by doing so could all of the above factors be satisfactorily balanced, each against the others.

So much for history; Moore's law is implacable and the price/power ratio for PDA-type hardware has plummeted. So, crucially as far as Psion is concerned, the need for a tight integration between the OS and the hardware has gone.

Secondly, the diversity of PDAs is undergoing a sea change. PDAs have never fallen into the BBB category in any case - look at the Psion and the Palm; about the only similarity is that both begin with P. But the range of new machines is much more varied. Vadem's Clio (right) can be simply a writing pad that turns your hand-written words into text. A PDA can be a device for watching videos, something you wear on your wrist, it can be something that slots into a pocket of your suit and takes voice input via a tiny microphone and outputs via an earplug - all of these devices do or will soon exist and someone, somewhere will buy them.

So, the situation is that:

- We no longer need to tie the OS to the hardware.

- PDAs are in the process of diverging into manifold forms.

Fine. WinCE can deliver many different machines; in fact, Microsoft doesn't have to do anything, it just delivers the OS and leaves it to the others to come up with the hardware. Psion is promoting new hardware, but Psion is only one company and cannot possibly deliver the diversity of hardware that the market requires.

Indeed, given the history, we are moving into major irony territory now.

Microsoft continues to be pilloried for trying to control the PC market but, by selling an OS solely for PDAs, it is actively promoting an open PDA market. It is companies like Psion, keen to sell a hardware/software combination, which are in danger of being accused of promoting a closed market.

So, who will win?

To summarise:

- WinCE has more developers and better development tools.

- The suits are interested enough in WinCE to attend the conferences, so the money is also there to develop applications.

- The hardware manufacturers are flocking to WinCE.

- People who aren't interested in the history of PDAs will buy whichever toy appeals to them from the range presented. There will be more WinCE machines in that range than Symbians.

There is really no contest.

In an attempt to forestall the flood of hate mail from Psion users, let me make it clear what I am not saying:

- That WinCE is technically better than EPOC. I think the reverse is true, but technical excellence is not going to be the deciding factor.

- The Psion PDA line is finished - Psion can continue to produce machines that I hope will sell well. I like the machines that the company produces.

- That might is right.

Also, please note that I have been talking about PDAs. Psion is clearly in an impressive position to do great things with phones and that is a whole new ball game. Psion supporters will be delighted to learn that Microsoft only demonstrated one piece of software running on a phone - a 'micro-browser' that could talk to a server and pick up mail. It was dreadful.

What I'm saying is that it is now clear that WinCE will become the dominant OS on PDAs. If this affects your choice of a PDA, then buy one with WinCE.

- Toy story

The WinCE show was a techno-toy freak's nightmare - too many goodies.

I desperately tried to buy a Vadem Clio while at the show. This is a wonderfully bizarre PDA: as the screen shots on the previous page show, the screen is hinged so that it can be used either as a conventional display device or as a pad upon which you can write. So you can hold the device like a paper pad, write on the screen and the software will turn your words into text. It isn't that word recognition is new, just that the whole bundle works so well as a complete unit. And it was available at just $500. Sadly my attempts to buy one in time to carry it home came to naught, they aren't available in the UK and cannot be shipped. However, I have no doubt that they (or some variation) will appear here soon .

Then there's the Casio E100. I already have one of the first UK spec machines and by the time you read this it should be available to buy.

The processor runs at 131MHz, it has 16Mb of RAM, a 240x320 TFT screen providing 65,536 colours. This palm sized device is powerful enough to play video clips complete with stereo sound, and this sort of power also means that there is no longer a need for a tight integration of the OS and the hardware.

- Fun Stuff

John Kennedy has been at it again. His TankZone, the 3D shoot-em-up, is now available in colour for the Jornada 420 colour palmsize, as well as the 640x480 screen HPC Pro. (above). TankZone is a charity-ware program so it's fun and you can feel good about playing it.

Kennedy's Pocket Universe has also been updated to Pocket Universe 2000, and has many new features. Once again, support is included for both the colour and the larger screen size of the HPC Pro and the Palm machines.

Even more fun, John has produced Sticky Buttons, a brand new User Interface for WinCE machines. Sticky Buttons adds program launch icons to the Active Desktop of the palmsize PC. So, like a Palm, you can simply tap a large icon to launch the contacts or calculator display.

What's more, anyone can add their own icons to the display: already there are South Park, Star Trek and other free themes to download (Pictured at the top of the page). I've got it running on my Casio and it's fantastic. Especially the HAL version ...

Andrew Hirst writes: 'I thought you might be interested to know of some developer news for EPOC.

Neuon are developing a number of dialog OPX's to bring the diverse and flexible controls currently only available to C++ developers, within the reach of those who use OPL32. Releases and details are at www.neuon.com.

PCW CONTACTS

Mark Whitehorn welcomes your feedback on the PDAs column. Contact him via the PCW editorial office, or email pda@pcw.co.uk.