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Operating Systems Software Handhelds Robotics Hardware

Linux In Robots, Windows in Handhelds 228

Posted by timothy from the palm-os-in-robot-pdas dept.
savuporo writes "Robots.net is reporting that Linux-based robots are far more common than Windows-based robotics. Especially various Asian robot builders are increasingly selecting Linux and other open-source software as a basis for robot products and research. Linux is also gaining ground in other embedded applications like PDAs and mobile phones." That said, prostoalex writes "50% of all the PDAs sold in 2003 had Palm OS, while Windows family accounted for 37.7% of PDA market. In 2004 Microsoft is the leader of handheld OS market with 43% market share, followed by Palm OS with 36.3%."
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Linux In Robots, Windows in Handhelds More

Linux In Robots, Windows in Handhelds

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  • well then (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 21, 2005 @11:37AM (#11736621)
    I'm not sure which OS I should use for my handheld robot.

  • Linux best in the growing market (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gagravarr ( 148765 ) * on Monday February 21, 2005 @11:37AM (#11736623) Homepage
    It seems to me that the robotics market is a growing one - more and more robots are going to be produced in the future. Linux has this growing market.

    Windows has the shrinking market. Handhelds are on the way out, being pushed aside by smarter phones (running Linux or Symbian). Why have a phone and a handheld, when the phone will do both? So, the handheld market is shrinking, and that's the one Windows has.

    Linux 1, Microsoft 0

    • Re:Linux best in the growing market (Score:5, Interesting)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Monday February 21, 2005 @11:42AM (#11736660) Homepage Journal
      I don't agree at all. PDAs and phones are merging, neither one is going away. Microsoft doesn't make the hardware, they only provide the software. There are already a few PocketPC smartphones. I don't think you are familiar enough with the products to make that statement.

      • Re:Linux best in the growing market (Score:5, Informative)

        by gagravarr ( 148765 ) * on Monday February 21, 2005 @11:48AM (#11736718) Homepage
        I'm well aware that Microsoft make smartphone software. I have a lot of friends with smart phones (most of whom are windows users), but not one of them have a windows smartphone. The microsoft smartphones just don't have the market share.

        Also, everyone I knew who had a PDA has ditched them in favour of a smartphone. It's true that the market is merging, but only in one direction - phones are eating the market of PDAs. Just look at the sales figures - this year's smartphone sales are set to be higher than all the PDA sales ever!

        • Re:Linux best in the growing market (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          They don't have the market share YET. Microsoft didn't have the game console market share when they started. Microsoft didn't have the PDA/handheld device market share when they started. Now they do.

          You guys don't get it! MS is looking ahead, not behind.
      • The main reason that Pocket PCs sell as well as they do is simply that they natively support Office and Outlook. You don't get any goofy unsupported meeting reccurance patterns, and you can open attachments in MS office format. Most corporate (l)users run Windows and Office, and thus this is what they are familiar with.

        Of course the attachment item is possible on a Palm, but it requires additional software. Again, out of the box functionality is king...
      • Windows based smartphones account for around 3% of the market (Qtek and all). The leading player (I think it has 60% of the smartphone market) is Nokia. Nokia smartphones are all Symbian based. IMHO SonyEricsson is the third or the second, I can't remember the figures. (P900, P800 K700 and so on). I think they also use SYMBIAN OS.

        If you have to pick up an environment for your applications. I would first consider J2ME MIDP 1.0 (you can easily port it to RIM) and Symbian C++.

        Windows smartphones are a nich
        • My phone has J2ME MIDP 2.0/CLDC 1.0, so that's probably where I would be aiming. Probably just about every new-design phone from here on out will have MIDP 2.0, I would imagine. I'm not interested in Symbian, Java runs in more places, at least if you avoid using vendor-specific routines until after you get generic routines in place for everyone else. I have many nokia MIDlets that run just fine on my Motorola without modification.
    • But you ahve to ask yoruself, WHY would you put Windows in a robot? That seems kinda stupid to me. You dont need IE, Exchange compatibility, or a cheezy GUI for a robot. Plus you need fricken 256 megs of ram and a license just to use it, why would ANY robot run windows?

      • Re:Linux best in the growing market (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        >> would ANY robot run windows?

        Because Windows has a spell checker that would allow the robot to post on /. without appearing an illiterate asshole - unlike your good self.
    • I ended up having to get a Windows based PDA simply because I wanted to use CF while having wireless+bluetooth. Palm devices don't support CF, the Zaurus is just too damn expensive/unavailable, so the only options left to me were the winCE based PDAs.

      I don't see a shrinking PDA market, it's simply that the two markets are converging. I had no interest is my PDA being able to make GSM calls, but I *do* like the fact that I can use it with Skype.
    • Someone attempted an unbiased survey about a year ago. Their conclusions were 1) Doing an unbiased survey is nearly impossible and they weren't sure if they'd managed it, and 2) Linux is best on fringe technology while windows is best where you want to reinvent the wheel.

      Basically, windows CE came with lots of libraries for doing stuff that had already been done, but linux was more customisable if your product was actually innovative.

      Given that and assuming it still holds, then if robots really are the n

  • 4 out of 5 robots prefer Linux (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 21, 2005 @11:39AM (#11736632)
    over CP/M.

    By the way, has Commodore released the C=64 CP/M cartridge yet? All my valuable early 80s software is orphaned!

  • Should read.. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by delire ( 809063 ) on Monday February 21, 2005 @11:40AM (#11736646)

    ..50% of all the PDAs sold in 2003 had Palm OS, while Windows family accounted for 37.7% of the dying PDA market..

  • PalmOS is past it (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 21, 2005 @11:40AM (#11736648)
    This might be a viewpoint that isn't shared by many, especially considering that it does everything that a PDA needs to do - then again a 5 year old Palm also did - but it has fallen behind, limited by the old architecture of PalmOS.

    They really need to get version 6 out, the version that should be fully native on ARM hardware, using BeOS functionality and so on. They should concentrate on providing a wide range of easy to use software that looks good and performs well. Beat PocketPC where it is good.

    The sad thing is that Palm Desktop is a good application for what it does, worth running even if you don't have a Palm!

    • Re:PalmOS is past it (Score:5, Insightful)

      by hey! ( 33014 ) on Monday February 21, 2005 @12:27PM (#11737021) Homepage Journal
      I think you hit it on the head when you say the five year old palm does everything you need in a PDA. But I think you're wrong when you say the solution is to deploy more advanced technolgy. Unless there is a killer app for this tecnology, it will likely only hasten the move away from stand alone PDAs. The original Palm experience was about stripping stuff to its essentials. Adding to this minimality without a killer app is only detracting from it. This is why the PocketPC user experience still lags the PalmOS experience of five years ago. Not to say it doesn't have some cool stuff in it, it's just awkward and irritating to use -- take this from somebody who as a developer has multiple PDAs.

      If anything, the reason the PDA market is dying is that people don't need palmOS 5, much less palmOS 6. There is nothing compelling in the PDA form factor to drive new sales.

      Convergence is not some brave new world where people will be watching movies on their cell phone, its really a contraction and subsumption of the old world into to the phone handset. People are rejecting having more capabilities stuffed into their PDAs, and voting with their feet by either going with plain old cell phones, or smart phones, or devices like the blackberry, which is frankly pretty rudimentary from a technology standpoint.

      It's an emotional thing. The developers of PDA technology have lost touch with the user. There is only one company that understands this well enough that it could really revitalize the PDA market: Apple.

    • PalmOS is past it, however the OS that a PDA runs is really neither here nor there if the apps are lacklustre or if the hardware is poor.

      Having had experience of both Palm & PocketPC, I'd say that the Palm still has much better PIM software but the hardware is lacking. The PocketPC software is far too tap happy and dialog filled - entering an appointment takes many more taps compared to the Palm. And PocketPCs are very crash-prone and and often need a soft-reset.

      Still, popular PocketPC devices such

    • Re:PalmOS is past it (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Fnkmaster ( 89084 )
      Palm doesn't lose to PPC on app availability, quite to the contrary, Palm still wins out there.

      PPC wins out in media compatibility and multitasking.

      PalmOne/PalmSource have been royally fucking the goat on making progress with their OS and their hardware over the last few years. The Treo 600 was good, and the Treo 650 is basically what the Treo 600 was supposed to be (a decent screen and working camera, and it's a fucking 600 dollar upgrade, AND they went ahead and made the software buggier and their hard
    • It is important to point out that handheld sales do NOT include smartphones. Check out the caveats at the end of this article [palminfocentre.com].

      If you count Palm's Treo sales, they are neither losing to Microsoft, nor shrinking their sales.

      Just an FYI.

  • gives a whole new meaning to (Score:5, Funny)

    by essreenim ( 647659 ) on Monday February 21, 2005 @11:42AM (#11736662)
    exec kill proc

  • I agree (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Korpo ( 558173 ) on Monday February 21, 2005 @11:42AM (#11736664)
    Since years we've been reading the PDA is dying, and unlike all the "BSD is dying" crap this actually means the market is shrinking. As long as Windows isn't a big player in the mobile phone market, that's nothing to boast about. And their mobile phone products suck - they've even crashed. That is something mobile users aren't to accept, because other key players seem to have it worked out better.

    Linux gets slowly but steadily adopted into more and more mobiles, same with carrier grade Linux with the telcos.

    Add this to robotics, which is associated with the biggest increases in productivity, there seems to be a bright future for embedded Linux, which is really contending with stuff like vxWorks or Symbian, not so much Windows.

    • But choice is limited (Score:5, Insightful)

      by thpr ( 786837 ) on Monday February 21, 2005 @12:41PM (#11737157)
      And [Microsoft's] mobile phone products suck - they've even crashed. That is something mobile users aren't to accept, because other key players seem to have it worked out better.

      Linux gets slowly but steadily adopted into more and more mobiles...

      That's quite an assumption to how things will play out. I'm not so certain the first statement leads to the second.

      While I understand that some companies (Nokia, due to its ownership stake in Symbian, being the most significant) have a vested interest in Microsoft not being the OS of choice in a phone or smart phone, I wasn't aware that the consumer had much choice in what ends up in the phone. My understanding is that the relationship between the software supplier and the phone maker (and the phone maker and the carrier) is more significant than what the user is interested in. The challenge is that the consumer criteria for purchasing a phone are the brand name of the phone, the design (straight vs. clam shell), the camera (or lack thereof), cost, ringtones, SMS capability, games, and other features; the OS is mostly (if not completely) transparent to those decision criteria [remember Marketing 102: people buy solutions to problems, needs & wants; they do not buy products]. If I got a new phone, I would ask what OS the phone is running; however, I bet most people don't care. As a side note, I don't actually know if Microsoft-based phones display a MS logo on boot; however, you should consider that people might associate failure (e.g. crashing) to the brand name of the phone as much as the OS it is running.

      There may be long-term damage if the systems do not work properly, but it will take a long time to play out (The replacement time for phones is 18+ months in the US last I checked). This (along with the lack of major press on the issue) is probably enough of a reprieve that Microsoft can fix its problems. This is a much better place (from their point of view) for Microsoft to get itself entrenched - because it only needs to maintain the corporate relationships with the manufacturers (and to a lesser degree the carriers)... Then, with "good enough" products, they can survive.

      The same goes for Microsoft's push into IPTV and its deals with SBC and others. There isn't a need for a consumer to make a choice - if you subscribe, you're using Microsoft's products; your only non-Microsoft choice is to not receive the service. While some staunch anti-Microsoft individuals may be willing to take that step, many others (I would argue most people) would just as well have the service, even if it means dealing with a Microsoft product. If Microsoft wins any cable companies, some consumers may have no choice at all if they want to have on-demand services.

      It is, in truth, a brilliant play by Microsoft into areas where it is harder to make a consumer choice to remove a specific type of software. I highly doubt we will see the day where the software has to be independent of the phone or set top box, as was the case with mainframe computers when IBM got itself into anti-trust problems. So Microsoft is here to stay, even if they have to share the desktop.

    • Yea, it's not the Windows is "gaining" ground in the PDA market.

      They are instead "losing less" ground relative to the competitors. Why I guess you can consider gaining, but it's like arguing over who gets to eat the last piece of cake on board the titanic.

  • Windows robots are dangerous! (Score:5, Funny)

    by bigtallmofo ( 695287 ) on Monday February 21, 2005 @11:44AM (#11736682)
    Creators of robots use Linux to control them because robots would be far too dangerous when infected with spyware.

    Imagine you forget to patch your mobile, appendage-laden Windows-running robot, connect it to the Internet and suddenly it wakes you up in the middle of the night with a mischievous look on its face.

  • Microsoft laws of Robotics: (Score:5, Funny)

    by ch-chuck ( 9622 ) on Monday February 21, 2005 @11:45AM (#11736693) Homepage
    Maybe it's because of the MLoR:

    First Law:

    A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm, unless it interferes with making a profit.

    Second Law:

    A robot must obey orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law, or interferes with making a profit.

    Third Law:

    A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law, or interferes with making a profit.

  • Incredible (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FreeLinux ( 555387 ) on Monday February 21, 2005 @11:46AM (#11736699)
    Linux and free / Open Source software are used more heavily than commercial software for research and development projects.

    Who would have thunk it?

    • Re:Incredible (Score:5, Insightful)

      by fm6 ( 162816 ) on Monday February 21, 2005 @12:38PM (#11737129) Homepage Journal
      You seem to have read only half the story. Linux is dominating one kind of R&D (robotics), but can't seem to find a following in another kind (handheld computing). The failure is as important as the success, and any Linux advocates would do well to compare them.

      I think the big difference is inertia. When you have a lot of people doing things a certain way, it's hard to persuade them that they should change course. All the people who have invested huge amounts of time and money in Windows licenses, software, and training aren't going to walk away from that without a really compelling argument. Linux advocates can't seem to find that argument.

      Robotics, on the other hand, doesn't grow out of any of Microsoft's existing marketplaces, so Windows doesn't have the same kind of inertia.

      • Linux probably does have a greater market share in research handhelds. It's just that there are very few research handhelds, so it doesn't affect the handheld market as a whole.

        Handhelds weren't really a market that Windows had much going into; inertia would suggest that people running Windows would want to develop handheld software under Windows, but the usual PalmOS development environments are under Windows anyway. It's not like you could possibly use the same software on a desktop and a handheld effect

    • Re:Incredible (Score:4, Interesting)

      by rseuhs ( 322520 ) on Monday February 21, 2005 @12:57PM (#11737305)
      Haha, actually, the reverse is true. Windows does great in universities and some hobby-projects because they offer sponsorships.

      In the "real" world, however, on embedded systems outside PDAs, there isn't much Windows at all.

    • Thing is these research projects sometimes make it into on the shelf products. Guess what software will run them. When you've spent millions developing something you would have to have a very good reason for throwing away the platform and re-writing it for another platform.

  • Developers Vs. Users. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by GNUALMAFUERTE ( 697061 ) <almafuerte AT gmail DOT com> on Monday February 21, 2005 @11:46AM (#11736703)
    This is the same as saying "Users choose Windows, Hackers choose GNU". It's not something specific to the handheld or the robotics market. It's the same that happends in the Servers Vs. Desktops dept. In areas where there is a Hacker in charge, for example, sysadmins, developers, etc. a Unix like OS will most certainly be choosen, and GNU is in most cases the best choice, because of many reasons, including ethical and comercial ones.

    It's not easy to reach the end user. Specially because it's expensive. Some companys spend more on publicity than in development, why?, because that's the way to reach the end-user market.

    ALMAFUERTE

    • Re:Developers Vs. Users. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Tim C ( 15259 )
      In areas where there is a Hacker in charge, for example, sysadmins, developers, etc. a Unix like OS will most certainly be choosen

      I guess that I and the other programmers I know that choose to use Windows just don't exist then, huh?

      It really depends on what you use the machine for. There's nothing that I personally need to do under Linux that I can't do equally well under Windows, and to my mind XP is just plain easier on the eye. That may have changed recently, of course - the last Linux distro I tried
    • It's not easy to reach the end user. Specially because it's expensive.

      Well, I've tried to develop software for handhelds, smartphones mostly, and I'd say that the reason you don't see linux much is something rather different.

      At least in the US, to use a smartphone, you must use one that is approved by the particular phone company. It's a violation of your TOS to attempt to use an unapproved phone with your account. In most cases, this violation will be detected and the phone part just won't work. If you

  • What else is out there? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    50% of all the PDAs sold in 2003 had Palm OS, while Windows family accounted for 37.7% of PDA market.

    What exactly are the other 12.3% running on?

    In 2004 Microsoft is the leader of handheld OS market with 43% market share, followed by Palm OS with 36.3%."

    Apparently whatever it was is loosing ground.

    • Re:What else is out there? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Well there are the Sharp Linux PDAs, and possibly there are still industrial PDAs made that run EPOC or Symbian? Maybe Blackberry?

      And what constitutes a PDA? Does a Microsoft Smartphone based device count? Does a Treo count? Does a Symbian based device count? If the PDA market is shrinking, then they can't be counted because otherwise the market would be growing. But they are PDAs. And surely which ever one wins out most is down to the whim of the phone company offering them for cheap?

      I mean, even low end
    • Apparently whatever it was is [losing] ground. Don't you mean gaining ground?

      2003: 50% + 37.7% = 87.7%
      2004: 36.3% + 43% = 79.3%

      There's an additional 8.4% to the 'Other' PDAs.

    • Symbian (Score:3, Informative)

      by winkydink ( 650484 ) *
      While the headline writer tries hard to infer that it's Linux, my money's on Symbian.
    • PDAs are losing ground (in terms of units sold per year) as more people buy more sophisticated phones.

      MS is struggling to make headway in the phone market.

      PalmSource is switching to a Linux kernel and many/most Asian phone makers are using Linux with QT, or some other front-ends.

      Microsoft is the leader of handheld OS market I doubt this very much. It depends on how one defines "OS","handheld" and "market share". If you include RTOSs as OSs and phones as handheld devices and define market share in terms of

  • Since I haven't noticed XP For Robots in Dixons lately I don't think this is exactly surprising.

  • Not really a surprise (Score:3, Funny)

    by Tibor the Hun ( 143056 ) on Monday February 21, 2005 @11:50AM (#11736731)
    Because we all know how great of a memory and process manager Windows is.

    If Windows managed the memory of a robot, then the robot would truly have shit for brains.

  • Mission Critical Robots? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by michelcultivo ( 524114 ) on Monday February 21, 2005 @11:52AM (#11736742) Journal
    We need mission critical OS when we need to run mission critical robots like that that disarms bombs and get people from infected areas, imagine the people telling that the OS give us a BSOD and can't disarm the bomb.

  • iPod ? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mirko ( 198274 ) on Monday February 21, 2005 @11:55AM (#11736766) Journal
    The iPod feature a sync functionality which makes it a read only handheld.
    Aren't there more iPod than CE handhelds ?
    This'd make the iPodOS the 1st handheld OS.
    Has someone the figures ?

    • Re:iPod ? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by geoffspear ( 692508 ) *
      I don't think the iPod really has the functionality to consider it a part of the handheld market.

      I certainly don't consider my iPod to be a replacement for my Palm, and anyone who buys a Palm just be be able to do the stuff an iPod can do is kind of foolish. At the very least, the ability to add new address book and calendar records seems to be part of the essential function of a PDA.

    • The article is limiting it's scope to PDAs... Personal Digital Assistance. The iPod is a handheld digital device, but then again so is your CD player or DVD player. I don't have a universally accepted definition of a PDA but examples are the Palm devices and Pocket Windows devices which work as portable digital organizers but also run multiple other programs in the way you'd expect a very small computer to run.

  • Windows will have a hard time in the embedded mrkt (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rseuhs ( 322520 ) on Monday February 21, 2005 @11:57AM (#11736789)
    When Windows has a huge installed base and tons of 3rd party support (like on the desktop or on PDAs), it offers quite some advantages because of that.

    However in the embedded market, these things are either not the case or don't really matter. Please note that I exclude PDAs here.

    So in the long term, Windows-devices will have a hard time because while royalties make up just a small amount at the beginning of the lifetime (paying the developers is more expensive), the longer the product (or the product-line) is sold, the less new developments are needed and the royalties become more and more important. Also market pressure usually forces the sales price down which also causes that the royalties make up a larger share compared to revenue.

    Also, Linux offers a rich software library which is readily available and just needs to be recompiled.

    So while some WinCE-solutions might have some small success, they are pretty much doomed in the long term because they just can't compete in a matureing market.

    • I'm somewhat in the embedded market as I am into automotive modules.

      This market is different because embedded developing compnaies are used to making all the profits off the products they produce. We are used to writing the complete software, and buying only say, a network or rf driver, if required.

      in the embedded supply market the money is made on selling developers tools that work with the _hardware_. And at INSANE prices too. The software is not a problem because we generally write our own OS.

      MS ca

  • Tried Both (Score:5, Informative)

    by Edward Faulkner ( 664260 ) <.ef. .at. .alum.mit.edu.> on Monday February 21, 2005 @12:00PM (#11736809)
    The Maslab Robotics Contest [mit.edu] evaluated both Linux and Windows for our robots, and working with Windows was a real pain. Windows Embedded lacked the configurability and features we wanted, and full-blown XP was way too bloated and GUI-dependent.

    We stuck with Linux even though it meant passing up potentially lucrative sponsorship.
    • Did you ever look at Windows XP Embedded? I know this is slashdot and this won't go over too well, but XP embedded is actually(from my experience) OK for robotics. It's basically XP with a utility that lets you remove components such as the GUI, disk drive support, and the like to make it more configurable and less bloated. Admittedly Linux might still be better though, I've never used it for an embedded application besides the PDA.
      • Yes, XP Embedded didn't meet our needs. For one thing, we wanted to do development directly on the robots. On Linux we could SSH into the robot and change things on the fly, including code editing and recompiling. We tried the same with Cygwin, but it's just not as useful.

        We also encountered several maddening bugs that we couldn't fix. Ah, the pain of closed source.

  • Proprietary Software Cannot Win... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ...when there is no race to win. Market share is a poor measurement of the penetration of technology into society. It may reflect sales and impress the suits and stockholders, but it has no real value. What does have value is complete freedom. This is why proprietary systems will fail unless some sort of corporate fascism is established. The United States is headed strongly in that direction with their government having less and less real power and being more of a puppet for the businesses in their cou

  • Makes sense (Score:5, Funny)

    by bkhl ( 189311 ) <bkhl@elektrubadur.se> on Monday February 21, 2005 @12:08PM (#11736879)
    Linux for vital production use, Windows for useless toys.

  • Linux is far cheaper, far more customisable (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gilesjuk ( 604902 ) <giles.jones@nospaM.zen.co.uk> on Monday February 21, 2005 @12:09PM (#11736882)
    Linux is much cheaper, you can develop a Linux based product with no need to pay for a commercial license for the source. Of course you need to make your modifications available if they link to the kernel.

    Linux can be made to respond a heck of a lot quicker too, due to the ease at which you can strip out the bulk and compile for embedded systems (2.6 has such a kernel option). You stand more chance of getting Linux to a near real time state than you do with Windows.

  • Robots, hand-helds are different domains (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ites ( 600337 ) on Monday February 21, 2005 @12:12PM (#11736905) Journal
    Obviously. But the differences explain the trends.

    Robots don't have any user interface candy. They are essential servers that control complex equipment. Open source, reliability, portability to random microprocessors... all these are top requirements. Windows never controlled any robots. Linux has taken market share from other proprietary operating systems.

    PDAs are 100% user interface, and even those who dislike Microsoft's approach to software must admit that they produce nice user interfaces. Not as nice as Apples... but that's another story. PalmOS is simple but the benefit of a zero learning curve only applies when most users are newbies. People want more now. Windows delivers, PalmOS does not.

    Mobile phones are more like robots. If you've used a new Symbian phone you'll realise just how far this goes from the walk-up-and-use interface of a classic GSM. Frankly I think 90% of phone sales will remain driven by simplicity, not functionality. Windows does not have a path here.

    Lastly, I think the next big competitor in PDAs is not PalmOS nor Linux, but Apple. It's a natural progression from iPods and Apple are the only people who make nicer toys than Microsoft.

    • You know, I think this is probably one of the more insightful comments I've seen on this thread, but I have to comment nonetheless.

      I agree that UI complexity is often a Microsoft sore point, but having recently bought myself a Microsoft Smartphone (Motorola MPx220) I have to say that this OS is definitely a significant step toward a simple but flexible UI.

      While it's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, it's VERY simple to use if you're using it as a phone... which let's face it is what most peop

  • Linux advancements (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Tharald ( 444591 ) on Monday February 21, 2005 @12:26PM (#11737018)
    Palmsource has decided that the next version of Palm will be based on Linux [technewsworld.com]. So soon the major OSes for PDAs will be Windows and Linux (plus symbian). Personally, I have the Zaurus c760, and think it is great. Having the ability to use the huge library of linux software for the device is great (i run pdaXrom, so X-ware can mostly be made to work). I just wish Sharp or others would get their fingers out and offer more selections and market it better. -TN
    • more... [theregister.co.uk]

      PalmSource already has a smart phone OS, but it believes CMS code will allow it to extend its reach further downmarket into more basic voice-oriented models. CMS has built a phone platform, mfone, on the back of a home-brewed, ARM- and MIPs-oriented embedded version of Linux, mLinux, and a selection of the usual comms and PIM apps. All these components will be the Palm OS look and feel - and, crucially, data compatibility - over time. What's planned is no mere GUI swap - more the replacement with Pa

  • How many times must it be said? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by erroneus ( 253617 ) on Monday February 21, 2005 @12:27PM (#11737027) Homepage
    People, when given the choice, prefer to pay nothing.

    This is especially true in areas where "support" isn't an issue. For example, robotics is a very special application. Microsoft isn't going to be of much help when it comes to such an application... at least not in the general sense. The best they could offer is the base OS... and that's pretty simple -- if you're a technical guy and can't troubleshoot that little bit, then you probably don't need to be building robots in the first place... if you can, then why do you need Microsoft "support"? And since you don't need that, then what's the benefit of BUYING an OS when you can get one for free?

    There's no escaping free in special applications.
  • Wouldn't it be the case that if you are developing an embedded operating enviroment that the simple fact you can have run levels almost pay for itself versus Windows? That and the ability to spawn terminals, and oh yes, the fact you can embed it at all and the fact that there HRT (hard real time) versions of Linux?

    It seems like saying 'more cars have round wheels than Microsoft's Visual SquareWheel #+'.
  • Personal robotics today doesnt exist outside of the hobbist techie and academic realms. But M*ft wont ignore an opportunity once the turnover is worth more then a few hundred million dollars and growing. As they did with the Internet, Java, handhelds, games, phones, settop-boxes etc. they may eventually take over the personal robotics market too. :-(
    LS http://robosavvy.com/ [robosavvy.com]
  • I'm not sure why this is so interesting. Creating a working robot is no easy feat. So when doing so you're going to want the maximum amount of flexibility allowable. That may include being able to modify the underlying kernel of the OS running in/on your robot. MS doesn't provide any avenue for that. You also don't get much selection over what comes with your software. Guess what - robots don't need MS Messenger installed on them. Windows doesn't fit onto a 16MB install. Linux can. It's flexibility
  • When mass-producing a robot, the very expensive, unique hardware makes open source more profitable. The "lock-in" that stops others copying your product is the fact that your robot OS will not do much on a desktop.

    That said, Windows has never been a very customisable system, and it doesn't seem to make sense to run dedicated equipment on it.

    (Insert joke about robot not needing IE preloaded in memory here).
  • There are a number of issues that make linux a better bet for robotics. The hardware is singificantly more accessible in Linux. Writing hardware drivers is a pain in the ass in any OS, but doing them for Windows is just hell.

    On top of which, Linux just responds better in a real-time environment. Windows has too much crap going on in the background that you just can't control. With Linux, it's much easier to pare down the OS to the bare essentials. And then there's the issue of price...
  • But why are robots even running operating systems? That's way too much added complexity for the majority of robotics projects. It's all about reading input pins, analysing the data, and turning on/off the actuators to the output pins. A PC OS does way way way more than you need for that stuff and necessarily adds to the hardware price in a big way.

  • It's a mystery to me that Linux hasn't yet taken (Score:3, Interesting)

    by melted ( 227442 ) on Monday February 21, 2005 @01:32PM (#11737605) Homepage
    It's a mystery to me that Linux hasn't yet taken over both of these markets completely, end to end. It's free. It comes with full source code which you can tweak to your heart's content, it can be trimmed down to work in a frickin' wristwatch, it runs all the software you could possibly need, and if you need something extra, guess what, development tools are also free.

    Yet PDA makers insist on paying the dough to MSFT instead of hiring a dozen Linux hackers to do "spit & polish" on their distro of choice.

    I guess this is because PDA market is not yet cost driven, and PDAs are still perceived as useless geeky toys.
  • While sitting quietly on your desktop, infected Windows is far less dangerous to your own health than within some robotic platform freely wandering and/or poking around with random sticks. Seriously, I believe if used in robots, Windows itself will take Windows users out of humanity gene pool, ehm... directly.

  • With the direction of IPR/CR/PR/... laws ....
    >
    Will the Bot-OEM or the Bot-OSD be responsible for bug-bites and other problems?
    >
    Do you want a controlling partner-OSD like MS-Win causing OEM liability?
    >
    With OSS GNU/Linux GPL the OEM would control their fate. A little data loss, data and network security, personal software problems ... are no problem ... if no death or physical injury. With robots there could be some interesting legal issues. Then again the way laws are developing today everything wil
  • The biggest problem of empirical data is the numbers. PDA sales are declining, but Smartphones are on the rise. Palm is abandoning it's PalmOS to move to Linux, but Sharp, one of the few Linux PDA supporters, is withdrawing support.

    Smartphones are on the rise, and 70 - 80% of them run Symbian. Windows CE, around 10%. Linux isn't close on this one either, however, MS may have a leg up. The Windows CE platform essentially covers both PDA as well as Smartphones. In other words, they are the same platfor

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