By Jerome Thorel, 2 June 2004 08:40
NEWS Sony is expected to announce that it plans to stop selling its Clié handheld anywhere except Japan - a blow for Palm OS supplier PalmSource.
The consumer-electronics giant plans to run down stocks in Europe and the US, only launching new models in Japan, according to sources close to Sony France.
Sony France refused to comment on the news, although it is expected to make a formal announcement this afternoon.
"This is a very bad news for us," said a source at PalmSource France. "Sony is our second-biggest client after Palm and was the driving force behind a number of technical innovations. The Clié range from Sony was the only Palm OS PDA available that included support for simultaneous Bluetooth and Wi-Fi," said the source.
According to Gartner, Q1 2004 saw Palm OS machines take just 40 per cent of the market, compared to 49 per cent in Q1 2003. By comparison, Microsoft and its Windows CE offering increased to 42 per cent from 35 per cent during the same period.
Jerome Thorel writes for ZDNet France.
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1. anonymous
What is the difference between Bluetooth and Wi-Fi?
2. Ticks
Bluetooth was designed for wireless connection of mobile phones to other devices originally, but has now branched out to connecting anything just about, though PDAs and mobile phones are the biggest users.
Wi-Fi is designed specifically for wireless computer networking.
They both use the same public (2.5GHz?) frequency, but differ in how they scan for connections, Bluetooth constantly cycles it's signal, Wi-Fi finds a free bandwidth then hogs it. They are designed for completely different uses reflected in the different connection ranges. Bluetooth is generally good upto 10-20m, Wi-Fi is good to 100-200m (in ideal conditions, real life tends to half these ranges. Wi-Fi will probably be changing in the not to distant future, due to the constant demand for more bandwidth, it will probably go to the 5GHz frequency.
The general uses are:-
Wi-Fi = Computer networking without the need for cables (at the sacrifice of reliability/stability, security and power consumption)
Bluetooth = Wireless mobile phone hands free kits, connecting PDAs to your mobile phone for internet/email access, or connecting cordless peripherals to PCs such as printers, scanners, keyboard and mouse.