[clipcarl]

Well in looking again at the 700w's dismal sales reports and Palm's subsequent stock drop in relation tehreto, looks like the buying poublic doesn't agree with you.

We're talking about the OS. If you add up the sales for all the WM/WinCE devices and compare it with sales for all PalmOS devices what do you see Jack?

[clipcarl]

1. Speed
2. Stability
3. Third-party developer support

You are out of your mind if you think PalmOS is more stable or has more developer support than WM at this point.

[clipcarl]

You forgot about 1-handed usage. WM5 sucks @ss.

WM5 is not as bad as previous versions. And future versions will be better. One thing that Microsoft is good at is copying what works from other products. At some point WM will be just as easy or easier to use than PalmOS.

[JackNaylorPE]

Jack, you are confusing devices with the OS. The question is whether POS or WM is the superior OS. The answer is simple: WM is superior because it allows you to do more. If you can tell me what wonderful features POS has which makes it superior, please let me know.

Surur

Looks like my answering would be redundant....but, let me try agreeing.

-WM is superior because it makes me take longer to do things.
-WM is superior because I must choose between using the device 1 handed while driving and risking my life to do it on WM 2 handed.
-WM is superior cause I won't be able to able to hold a beer in my hand and use my Treo at the same time.
-WM is superior cause WM developers are working faster trying to catch up to the number of programs that Palm has.
-WM is superior because it requires more hardware resources than POS.

[richpjr]

Interesting take that because the UI on the 700w isn't tuned for one hand use that you feel that the OS is inferior. Perhaps a few of the applications on the phone aren't tuned, but that is not a flaw in the OS - it's a flaw in those apps. That is something that should be fixed by MS, and I'll bet you'll see more polished apps in future.

I certainly agree that WM does require more resources and the UI isn't as mature as the POS (what a great name that is! ). I just think it's kinda funny to zing MS because Palm came out with a device that has so little memory that it severely cripples the usefullness of it. The crappy screen on the 700w was a poor choice as well. Phones based on MS are gathering momentum. You are fooling yourself if you think there isn't a swelling developer effort into those phones.

[surur]

Jack, you are still living in the past where people did not just take what Palm gave them, but believed anything more was fluff, until Palm of course finally gave it to them, at which point it was suddenly essential. Examples are more memory, colour screens, WIFI, removable batteries etc etc. I've dug up an article from them, for nostalgia sake.

Its by Ed Hardy, still an editor at Brighthand, from the heydays of 2002.

Editorial: Why the Palm OS Is the Inevitable Winner
Posted By: Ed on Monday, June 10, 2002 3:55:03 PM
Former PIC News Editor Ed Hardy takes a look at the competition between the Palm OS and the Pocket PC OS. Though long only a niche player in the handheld market, recently the Pocket PC started to make some gains. With the release of Palm OS 5, the competitive landscape has shifted back in the Palm OS's favor. The change to faster processor and the addition of new capabilities means that the Palm OS is in no danger of losing its lead in the handheld market.

Since its release back in 1996, the Palm OS has dominated handheld sales. When Microsoft released Windows CE in 1997, many industry "experts" were quick to say that the software giant would quickly take over the lead. As we all know, that didn't happen. Here's why.

Palm and Microsoft have taken totally different approaches to developing a handheld OS. The reason the Palm OS leads and Microsoft follows is Palm's approach worked and Microsoft's didn't.

Microsoft decided to build everything they thought a customer would ever want into theirs right from the beginning. They were aware the hardware wasn't good enough to handle all that but Microsoft knew it would be someday. They have never had a problem releasing products that weren't ready for the market and making their customers pay for the R&D. That's why WinCE/PPC have always had a lot of multimedia functions and short battery lives and poor performance; the software was way ahead of the hardware.

This might have worked if the hardware had caught up to the software relatively quickly. But it didn't. WinCE was released in 1997 and the hardware is just now catching up, five years later. The situation got so bad for Microsoft that they changed the name of their handheld operating system from WinCE to Pocket PC in an attempt to escape the very bad reputation WinCE had collected.

Palm took the exact opposite approach. It tailored its OS to what the hardware could handle. That's why the Palm OS has lacked multimedia but had great performance and battery life. Turns out that's what customers wanted and Palm has continued to dominate handheld sales.

Palm's approach meant that handhelds didn't do everything that some customers wanted, but what it did do, it did well. And Palm's simplistic approach also kept costs down.

The Times They Are a Changin'
But things have progressed. Just because the time wasn't right for multimedia in 1996 doesn't mean it still isn't right. Processors have gotten better. They use less power while getting faster. This means the hardware is ready for multimedia and that's why PalmSource is including it in OS 5.

But the Pocket PC OS benefits from the new processors, too. The hardware has finally just about caught up with their software. This is why it has made some recent gains in market share.

There might have even been a real competition between it and the Palm OS but now that the PPC's most glaring problems have been removed, its many other problems have become more obvious.

The Palm OS has a very easy to use interface, well adapted to a small screen. Pocket PC has an interface designed for a screen at least four times bigger than any possible on a handheld. And this is something that Microsoft will never be able to fix because it is absolutely dedicated to the belief that the Windows interface is the best possible one for any situation. It's right there in the name; to Microsoft, it's a PC that fits in your pocket. Actions which are easy to perform on a large PC screen are difficult on a 320 by 240 one. One of the major premises of the operating system just doesn't work.

Now that OS 5 allows new multimedia features, H-P, Toshiba, and the rest no longer have anything to advertise. With the new operating system, Palms will be able to do everything Pocket PC's can do. Multimedia, wireless, whatever. Both operating systems even run on the same microprocessors. What's H-P's tag line going to be, "Almost as Good and Only Twice as Big"?

There are thousands of Palm OS applications and a thriving third party software market. Hardly any companies are developing for the Pocket PC and so there are few applications. This is because developers know that if they make a successful application, Microsoft will write a clone and bundle it with PPC 2003 (or whatever).

For example, there are numerous word processors for the Palm OS. This gives customers a choice and the competition spurs the developers to keep making their products better. Microsoft bundles Pocket Word with the operating system. There is no point in anyone making a competitor. Few people will buy it because they already have a word processor. From all reports, Pocket Word is pretty lame. I've even heard suggestions that Microsoft deliberately made it that way so they wouldn't cut into sales of the desktop version. But no one will write a serious competitor because there's almost no chance they could make any money off it.

Too Little, Too Late
Microsoft has missed the boat. Palm was asleep at the wheel, just coasting along for a couple of years. This was Microsoft's only hope to take over the market. But that time is over. PalmSource is aggressively improving the Palm OS. It already has 87% of retail sales in the United States and sells about twice as many handhelds in the Enterprise market as Microsoft does. Expect PPC's share to drop back to single figures. Especially during the burst of sales caused by Palm users upgrading to the new operating system.

The PPC won't go away. Microsoft has tons of money to pour into it and hates to admit it has failed at anything. But any other company would see the writing on the wall and drop it.

There are still plenty of "experts" who are predicting that the Pocket PC will take over the lead from the Palm OS in a few years. Keep in mind, though, these are the same people who have been predicting the same thing for years. Every year, they move back the year that Microsoft will take over.

I wish I could claim all this came to me in a great epiphany but Steve Bush from Brighthand is the one who shed the light on Palm's and Microsoft's differing philosophies for me on the way home from the PalmSource conference a few months ago.

http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/3...itable-winner/

Surur

[2000 Man]

Interesting take that because the UI on the 700w isn't tuned for one hand use that you feel that the OS is inferior. Perhaps a few of the applications on the phone aren't tuned, but that is not a flaw in the OS - it's a flaw in those apps. That is something that should be fixed by MS, and I'll bet you'll see more polished apps in future.

Uh, yeah. Like the phone app, contacts app, email app, calendar app, etc. LOL

[CellGeek]

I am a 700p owner. I enjoy PALM OS, but I think people are missing a scary trend here. PALM is losing it's lead/falling behind, whatever you want to say at a fairly quick rate right now.

Mind you I chose the P over the W, so I am not bashing here. But what people are looking for more and more these days is convergance devices. GPS/Slingbox/iPOD/PDA/phone/camera/AD2P/internet access etc. WM is taking the lead in the entertainment aspect of this. PALM's calander is better yes, BUT PALM doesn't even HAVE a sling client. I WANT to surf YouTube and watch videos, but I can't even get a FLASH player plug-in to work on my 700p. I have had 3 WM devices and 2 PALM's. Music has always been easier for me on WM, multitasking is great . . . . etc.

What can you do on PALM that you CAN'T do on WM? What I am saying here is that WM is capable of more, but in some aspects at a lesser quality. So do I pick the phone that has a better calander but no sling? Or the phone with a so-so calander AND slingmedia? And so on and so forth.

For me I still choose PALM for superior PIM, but . . . . . Eventually WM will get all these things ironed out and working well. The PIM will be as good as PALM, and when that day comes, PALM is going to be far behind if they haven't made the changes in other areas yet.

These are just my opinions. I am sure others will say this is a buisiness device, entertainment is secondary etc. I totally respect those opinions, but I think the majority are going to end up being swayed to WM in the long run, if PALM doesn't make a move pretty quick here.

[Fafafoooey]

I look at it this way. By the time my contract is up, Windows Mobile will probably be so much better than it is now. The 700P is great for what I want. Stable phone, lots of good software, easy to use without stylus, stable phone. When my contract is up, the new Windows devices at that time will probably be pretty bangin. The Q will probably be a strong device and the form factor is beautiful. All they need to add is a touchscreen and it would be just about perfect.

[ink883]

Correct me if I am wrong. But arent the following Palm programs/apps superior to their microsoft counterparts? Blazer 4.5, Docs-to-go, Adgendus, SMS (on treo), Directory Assistant.

[JackNaylorPE]

What can you do on PALM that you CAN'T do on WM? What I am saying here is that WM is capable of more, but in some aspects at a lesser quality. So do I pick the phone that has a better calander but no sling? Or the phone with a so-so calander AND slingmedia? And so on and so forth.

For me I still choose PALM for superior PIM, but . . . . . Eventually WM will get all these things ironed out and working well. The PIM will be as good as PALM, and when that day comes, PALM is going to be far behind if they haven't made the changes in other areas yet.

Well said....the advantages Wm "suppossedly" offers just haven't been fleshed out enough or have associated disadvantages at this point in time that make the overall package less appealing. Give MS 18 - 24 months or so and they will correct most of those deficiencies in WM6 or 7, they will get the one handed thing figured out, LCD costs may frop to a point where ya can get a 480 x 480 screen ina devcie w/ a non hidden KB and Program vendors should have WM equivalents for most Plam programs.

If Palm isn't demo'ing a new Linux by that point (XMas 2007), they might as well forget about Linux.

[JackNaylorPE]

Interesting take that because the UI on the 700w isn't tuned for one hand use that you feel that the OS is inferior. Perhaps a few of the applications on the phone aren't tuned, but that is not a flaw in the OS - it's a flaw in those apps. That is something that should be fixed by MS, and I'll bet you'll see more polished apps in future.

I certainly agree that WM does require more resources and the UI isn't as mature as the POS (what a great name that is! ). I just think it's kinda funny to zing MS because Palm came out with a device that has so little memory that it severely cripples the usefullness of it. The crappy screen on the 700w was a poor choice as well. Phones based on MS are gathering momentum. You are fooling yourself if you think there isn't a swelling developer effort into those phones.

The problem is is that WM needs 2-4 times the hardware resources. Therefore are the same hardware, WM will always suffer perfromance issues in comparision. And contacts, memos, to do, calendar are part of the OS. Also, in typical MS tradition, other apps are crammed into the OS which is my major complaint. Let me put opera, Docs2Go, e-mail, , etc on a WM device after emoving the MS ones and most of my complaining goes away.....But Captain Borg requires that "You shall be assimilated" and does not allow you to remove anything just as you can't in windows. IE / WMP was made part of the desktop OS because, as MS was forced to admit only after perjuring themselves in court, their own internal e-mails said that was the only way they could get people to use their stuff.

[2000 Man]

Correct me if I am wrong. But arent the following Palm programs/apps superior to their microsoft counterparts? Blazer 4.5, Docs-to-go, Adgendus, SMS (on treo), Directory Assistant.

Shhhh. We don't want to scare away the trolls.

p.s. Chatter, VolumeCare, Flight Status, ...

[JackNaylorPE]

We're talking about the OS. If you add up the sales for all the WM/WinCE devices and compare it with sales for all PalmOS devices what do you see Jack?

Apples and Oranges.

The question is ....all things being equal, what will people choose. If someone has there heart set on a MoTo Q, they are gonna get a MoTo Q regardless of what OS is on it. How many people made a conscious decision on what OS they wanted when buying the Q ? No choice, no decision.

Even now it's hard to do a even field because it's a Sprint 700p versus a Verizon 700w. But right now it's the closest sampling we can get....many people who wanted the 700w switched carriers to get it. The sampling data
will get more accurate once Verizon and Sprint finish their exclusives.

My local store dropped Sprint because of the lack of coverage in his location but he's says he sells about ten Cingular 650's for every 2 700w's

[JackNaylorPE]

Jack, you are still living in the past where people did not just take what Palm gave them, but believed anything more was fluff, until Palm of course finally gave it to them,

Like the carpenter who uses a hammer instead of a nail gun to hang a mirror on the wall. Pretty impressive equipment that nail gun but by the time you set up the nail gun, I have the mirror hung and am on my way to the next job using that ole fashiooned hammer. I guess a lot depends on what you expect from your device. To me it's a business tool...to others it's an entertainment device....to other sit's a means of getting people to pay attention to them .

But still after all this, you came up with one thing I can do on WM that I can't on Palm and that was use a SD WiFi card.....WiFi is unviable in 99.9 +% of the geographical US......compare that with how long being unable to provide the most obvious need of being able to protect ya data by wiping the memory and SD card if ya didn't have exchange server .... did that 700w program that was suppossed to finally add this come outta beta yet ?

Even with Exchange server, there are concerns

http://www.smartphonethoughts.com/fo...f2bc1c892531e6

As a business tool, if it don't increase productivity, what's the point ? If you want to amuse yourself watching videos of TV shows you have already seen, i don't get it....I already know what happens at the end and the experience is paltry compared to what I saw the 1st time around. If you are downloading amusing video from Youtube.com to entertain yaself on the boss's corporate dime, then that doesn't say much for productivity either. I enjoy laughing, I enjoy entertainment but not at 240 x 240 and not on a $14 sound subsystem ....I prefer the 1920 x 1200 and 8.1 surround system on the laptop and on my own time not the corp's. But given the choice of 320 x 320 or 240 x 240, I think the choice is obvious.

WM has some advantages but not ones we can seriously take advantage of on an every day basis. Except for rare instances such as being on a college campus, WiFi just has too little pentration at this point in time to seriously matter. In an office, I am gonna use a laptop / desktop (mine or borrowed) to do anything serious...a Treo is a novelty. In a hotel, I use the business center machines.

In 2-3 years I gonna want WiFi as my county is embarking on a plan to have full coverage by 2008 or 2009. But right now it's a feature I can use in a situation I have yet to encounter - a) need to send something this minute b) no cellular service available and c) WiFi available. I just ain't gonna spend the time driving around looking for a Starbucks.

If in 18-24 months Palm is still asking us to do without these fetaures, I think your claims will hold more water. But right now, these advatages are like having a car with an engine that has 400 HP whereas there's no roads around that ya can do more than 30 mph, the tranny anmd drive shaft will break at 180 HP and it has trouble running at idle.

Give MS that 18-24 months and as they have shown in the past they will get the bugs out and they will mimick everything successful about the competition. They will still be burdened with excessive overhead but if ya throw enough hardware at it perhaps most won't notice. By then if Palm doesn't have an alternative to offer, they will indeed have nothing worthwhile to offer. But with handset prices coming down MS stockholders may become concerened about Windows desktop income being used to offset losses oin the mobile areana...they petty cranky about the desktop division supporting X-Box still. And frankly, I ain't too happy about my laptop OS subsidizing the X-box for little Johnny across the street.

[surur]

Jack, remind me, but does POS come with remote wipe out of the box? If not I dont see what you are complaining about.

When POSLinux comes around it will also need a lot more resources. As an example, the Nokia 770 is dog slow on a 200 MHz processor. A modern multi-tasking OS needs a lot of resources. Thats just a fact. Why do you think Cobalt never came to market?

Regarding 99.5% of US not being covered by WIFI, what percentages of conference rooms, hotels, airports etc are covered? WIFI is for intermittent usage, not constant use.

You tell me what the business benefit of colour screens are? Do you really need EVDO, or is slower 2.5 G enough for e-mail? Whats the point of those cameras on the Treo? Thats a business deficit in fact. Why is ptunes and kinoma in the 700p? Do business need streaming video?

Maybe a 650 is too much for you, and you need a 270?

Face the facts - people buy handheld devices as much for their own usage as business usage. If a business did not want these features they can easily enough lock them down. Both Palm, Microsoft and everyone else realize this. Maybe you dont.

Surur

[ppcmd]

I have used Palm and WM devices since the Palm Vx and I agree at the end of the day what matters is what you can get done and done well. Calender, contacts, email, SMS, MMS, Phone, games, etc. Palm can do those and better, WM can do those, but some not wel.

Since January 2006 I have had the Treo 700w, XV6700 and now the Treo 700p. I have had the Treo 700w both before and after the ROM Patch and I saw no huge benefit. Sure the push email was cool but it wasn't that cool. How about poor RAM installed. That error is caused by BOTH Palm and MS. MS for telling ODM's and OEM's they can use 32MB of RAM and Palm for doing it.

WM has a HUGE flaw and that is memory managment and if, when and until MS fixes this flaw then Palm will have an edge.

Now Palm will continue to lose market share unless the innovate and offer more must have features more rapidly. They need to get away from the lets have the customer upgrade in 18 months to get more memory or a better screen, those days are long gone.

Customers change devcies as quickly as they change their minds. Innovate or sell off teh intellectual property.

With that said I have had my Treo 700p for 6 days and I have not had to soft reset to get the memory back, I have one or two apps that are not working well and caused some quirks, but I am tracking them down. Over all I am happier with my Treo 700p.
So when MS gets WM to the point that it can work and relase memory properly then I will switch.

Final thought, Palm needs to learn to acknowlege the problems and deliver to the user base the patch. They need to tell the carriers they do not need to test the life out of the patch they need to get it deployed. Palm cannot afford to have a 60MB available RAM device bog down because you have 30MB of RAM free that like have a WM device with 5MB of program RAM free.

[JackNaylorPE]

Jack, remind me, but does POS come with remote wipe out of the box? If not I dont see what you are complaining about.

What does OOBE have to do with it ? When I bought my 650, I could add remote wipe on the day I brought it home. Caouldn't do that with 700w....it wasn't available at any price.

Regarding 99.5% of US not being covered by WIFI, what percentages of conference rooms, hotels, airports etc are covered? WIFI is for intermittent usage, not constant use.

Substantially less than offer superior alternatives.

Can't make decisions based upon "Imagine you are in this situation"....ask the question how often am I in this situation ? And I don't imagine that I am so indespensable that every communication to me must be answered within 90 seconds or life as we know it will come to an end. If I have 40 e-mails, I have to ask is it the most efficient use of my time to answer the question now or when I am in position to work more efficiently ? The Treo is tehre to give me a means of communication in an emergency.

It's like having a GPS on a boat. I create route maps for all frequent destinatiosn but when navigating there I tend to use those red and green things that are floating in the water to guide my way. While the GPS would help me do this in an emergency, the red and green thingies are right in front of me. In a fog situation where I need the help, the GPS is a great aid but using it to navigate in broad daylight and clear skies over inland waterways is silly.

I am the President of an engineering company responsible for several large construction projects served as the President of a Professional Association, now the Regional Manager of said Association for the Northeast states and yet I find that I "need" to do something "urgent" (within the next 4 hours) that can't be done with a phone call about 3 times a year.

Someone needs a file that I keep on my Treo, it's also on my office network...Let's see is it the most efficient use of my time or can my secretray do it ? Since she will spend less time doing it on her desktop than I will doing it on my Treo and since bills out at about 1/4 of my billing rate, I think it's more efficient to call her and say "Hey Mary, send the Cliffside specs to Bill Schmoe". It's noty about what you "can do"....it's about what can be done in the moste fficient manner possible.

Conference Room - Novelty advantage only. Hmmmm dozens of PC's around or use my Treo.....yeah let me type this half page memo with my thumbs instead of using the PC in the corner. Besides I am in a conference room to have a conference....I arrive early, I'm in the car making calls, answering e-mails till it's CO time....I go in have my conference....it's over, my arse is outta there. I can't waste time "playing" with my toy.

Hotels - Again, the PC in the business center and / or my laptop are both faster and easier than my Treo.

Airports - How much time do you spend in airports ?....me....90+% of the time I am in an airport, I am walking and I can't type while walking.....only on the rare occasion where I have a wait between flights. As with the other two above, have yet to be in one where my phone didn't have data access.

You tell me what the business benefit of colour screens are? Do you really need EVDO, or is slower 2.5 G enough for e-mail? Whats the point of those cameras on the Treo? Thats a business deficit in fact. Why is ptunes and kinoma in the 700p? Do business need streaming video?

Color is obvious....it allows for fasterr ecognition of icons and screen selections....it makes maps readable....PDF's of construction drawings are kinda useless when all utiloities are color coded.

EVDO is a convenience not a necessity.....I'll drop EVDO's paltry 200-600 kpbs for the 28,900 kbps on the laptop anytime.....the only time I will use the web on a Treo is when I need to do soemthing right then and there and can't wait till I am in the offcie... Good planning makes this a rarity.....I don't get to a jobsite and say "Gee I need the specs and diagrams for a PLC1200, let me look them up and downlaod them w/ my Treo".....I say "gee, I am visiting that job site today so let me bring all the specs and diagrams on my Treo"....download at 28,900, copy to SD card on the laptop and pop the SD card in Treo....much more efficient.

Cameras....I often takle job site photos of things I need to investigate......I do it quite often when having to do as builts taking a 3 photos of the panel sizes.....the ruler showing 24"w x 18"H x 8" deep is faster than a pencil and certainly faster than thumb typing.

Face the facts - people buy handheld devices as much for their own usage as business usage. If a business did not want these features they can easily enough lock them down. Both Palm, Microsoft and everyone else realize this. Maybe you dont.

Face the fact, there is a difference betwen what one needs and what one wants....whetehr that want is to entertain themselves or just get attention "Oh wow look at I can do". Just because you can do something on a Treo doesn't mean it is the most efficient way to get it done....pretending doesn't change that.

Here's an excellent example....I was given a emergency government contract and it took them 7 months to generate the apperwork to get me paid....I was financing payroll flor 5 employees on credit cards for 7 months. The gov't rep came out to our offcie and said he was returningtoday and would hand carry teh signed agreements as well as a bill if I could get one ready by 2:00 pm

I called my field office....didn't e-mail.....and sked everyoine to get their time in....I needed a 2 x 2 matrix from each employee. For example

-----------1st 2 weeks of month---------2nd 2 weeks of month

Job A-----------60----------------------------40
Job b-----------20----------------------------40

I called at 9:30.....all but one employee had me the stuff by 11 am.....I called him again at 11:15 "I'll get to it right away"..........I called at 12:45...."sorry something came up"......I finally got the stuff at 2:30.....a half hour fater the rep left.

I asked him why, after all the emphasis in why I needed it before 2 pm, why he couldn't get it to me. His answer that there was no computer available, they were all being used, and he didn't have access to a spreadsheet program. His technology addiction cost me big time...ya know what a months interest is on $237,000 at 18% ?

I told him to write it on a $%$#@*&^ napkin and fax it....it woulda saved me $4k. This is what happens when people get addicted to tech.....the tech takes precedence over the goal and that is getting the job done. If a person gets 100 e-mails in day, I feel safe saying I don't know anyone who **needs** to answer more than 5 % of them within 4-6 hours. Yet that's not what we see Treo users doing.....they answering all....when you ask why, the answer I most often get is ...."cause I can".

[surur]

Jack, I'm sure its all true, but I'm sure these apply equally to both OS's. Your needs are very specific, but many other people have different needs and circumstances.

BTW, I dont know where you got the impression that there was no third party software on windows mobile for remote wipe. Here's one called PDAKill that works via SMS message. You do know there is not 10 times more software for Palm as WM.
http://www.pocketgear.com/software_detail.asp?id=16803

Surur

[JackNaylorPE]

Jack, I'm sure its all true, but I'm sure these apply equally to both OS's. Your needs are very specific, but many other people have different needs and circumstances.

"Needs" and "Wants" are two different things.....if people took their reasons for buying their Treos and had to use them to get their boss to swing for it based upon impact on the bottom line, most wouldn't have Treos.

-Convince the CFO that you need to have him authorize a $400 purchase to replace your 650 with a 700w cause you "need" to be able to talk and look up stuff at the same time.

-Convince the CFO that you need to have him authorize a $400 purchase to replace your 650 with a 700w cause you "need" to be able to use WiFI when you in Starbucks....my answer "WTF you doin sittin on ya arse in Starbucks ?".

BTW, I dont know where you got the impression that there was no third party software on windows mobile for remote wipe. Here's one called PDAKill that works via SMS message.

What I said was there was no remote wipe software when the Treo 700w was released. IIRC, PDAKill (thanks for remembering the name) wasn't released IIRC till late March....or at least it wasn't working on WM5 devices till then as there were several threads here on TC with peeps worried about it.