I believe that the Newton-platform woul'd have died sooner or later.
The main problem is not the technology or the appretiation of the actual
users but what the big mass of potential customers would like to have.
Why did Palm became such a huge succes? Simply because of it's size! People
want a small machine they can put in their shirt-pocket and with wich they
can do all kind of nifty things, like....
Yeah, like what? Agenda, to-do's, HWR, watching movies, listening to music,
making phonecalls, handling e-mail, and about anything else one can
imagine. The most important thing is: this thing HAS to be small, and has
to have a color-screen, and stereo-sound, and voice-recognition! But above
all, it has to be small.
So, most customer will buy one of these PDA-thingies because they are
small. That is the only reason why Newtons, Psion's and all other
medium-sized machines never sold as they where supposed. Even IF Newton's
HWR would have been as good as it where marketed, people wouldn't have
bought them because you "can not carry them in your shirt-pocket".
I personally think that one should use the right tool for the right
purpose, but most people will still try to use a hammer to put a screw into
a wall.
From my own working experience I know that IT decisions are being taken
like this: We have a certain problem, we have MS-SW in house, so to solve
the problem we will stick to MS in any case. I do not want to bash MS-SW,
not at all, but people should look at what the best tool to solve their
problem is and use that instead of bending a tool to use for the wrong
purpose (which BTW results often in unhappy customers blaming MS for their
problem).
So, people would buy one of these PDA-thingies, use them, find out that
they do not fit their purpose, and stop using them. Look at what happend to
Psion, Palm, Visor, etc.
The one size (Newton-size) which actually would be usefull will not be
bought because it's to big to be carried in their pocket!
(I personally never understood why I would need to take anything in any
pocket! I even don't have my wallet in my trouserpocket because of the risk
it being stolen. I always have my knapsack with me (No, not an ugly one,
but a nice and above all praktical red one) where I carry all kind of
things in, for one my Newton, wallet, cell-phone, magzines. And it's not
that heavy altogether.)
I firmly believe that Steven Jobs was quite aware of this when the decision
was made to cut of the Newton platform. I am absolutley sure that SJ is
professional enough to make his decisions based on ratio, not emotion.
Sasa
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