Apple Targeting Business World for the iPhone 338
The New York Times is running a couple of stories about the future of the iPhone in the business world and Apple's plan to maintain control of application development. Now that the iPhone SDK has been released and the "App store" has been demonstrated, Steve Jobs is pushing for the adoption of the iPhone as a standard business tool. In addition, a venture capitalist named John Doerr has launched a $100 million "iFund" to spur development of applications for the iPhone. From the NYTimes:
"Mr. Jobs was upfront that there are limitations on what applications can do. He talked about bans on pornography and malicious programs. He also said Apple will not allow any application to be installed on the machine other than through the iTunes store. Nor will applications be permitted that enable an end run around Apple's deals with wireless carriers. Many questions remain unanswered. How much streaming video will Apple allow, because the iPhone is such an interesting video device? Mr. Jobs did say that the application development environment will have a lot of capabilities for video playback. Will Apple allow a service like Last.FM to offer streaming music on the iPhone?"
What Apple is doing (Score:3, Interesting)
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No, grumpy old farts on slashdot that "just want a phone" don't count.
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Actually the lack of a camera is a requirement for many businesses. I can't take a phone with a camera into many of our facilities, it is a very common policy in large companies.
The lack of 3G is a serious problem but it is definitely on the way, it was originally promised for 1Q 2008. This announcement looks to me as if it is either being made in place of the 3G announcement after an
Re:What Apple is doing (Score:4, Funny)
Hey, us grumpy old farts resent that and we don't want "just a phone". What we want is for you whippersnappers to stay off our lawns!!
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Erm...
OpenMoko? Android? It's all about the ECOSYSTEM! (Score:3, Insightful)
Right now Apple is proving the market for such a device, and then products like OpenMoko will come in and claim it, using the iPhone as R&D to prove concept but without encumbering themselves as Apple is doing.
Is OpenMoko/Android going to eat the iPhone's lunch? It's all about the ECOSYSTEM. If Apple's ecosystem is open enough, then it will eat OpenMoko/Android's lunch. If Apple's ecosystem is too closed, then OpenMoko/Android is going to prevail. No one can beat market forces, though you can subvert them to your ends like Microsoft (Windows) and Apple (iPod/iTunes) has. If someone's stranglehold on the platform is too big a price to pay, you will enable the competitors.
Limitations (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Limitations (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Limitations (Score:5, Informative)
You cannot install any apps on the actual phone without a certificate. Period. XCode will throw a build error if you try. I'd provide a link to the relevant section in the documentation, but you have to have the SDK to read them. For proof, look in the 'iPhone OS Programming Guide'. In the 'Development Environment' chapter read the 'Working With a Device' section.
Re:Limitations (Score:5, Funny)
You're right, these companies will probably stick with Microsoft.
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Forget it. Medium-to-Large companies will NEVER go for this.
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Re:Limitations (Score:5, Insightful)
Would that be as bad as using an email solution that requires all sensitive email to be sent via third party servers in Canada?
Would that be as crazy as using one operating system and browser from a SINGLE VENDOR and locking all your in-house apps, and even your web-apps, to that platform. Forget it. Medium-to-Large companies will NEVER go for this.
Cold, Steel Grasp... (Score:2, Interesting)
This is the same problem sony has with the psp (although, it has some differences as well) - If I want custom firmware on my psp, who is sony to tell me no?
I don't like where this at
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Re:Cold, Steel Grasp... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Cold, Steel Grasp... (Score:5, Insightful)
You can do whatever you want with it - it's just that Apple won't make it easy for you as that's their perogative. If you don't like it, don't whinge, buy an open platform instead. If you don't like the platforms that are available, get involved and create what you're looking for yourself. Once you've done that you can decide yourself what rights others have to do what they want with your device. If you've invested lots of time and money creating it maybe you might find that you want to look at things differently in order to recoup your costs...
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Porn! (Score:2)
Most businessmen will want it. It will save the travelling businessmen from the embarrassment of "pay per view" tv stations appearing on the bill.
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Re:Porn! (Score:5, Funny)
Apple already answered... (Score:5, Interesting)
So I think the question of how much data usage will be "allowed" for heavy use applications is essentially unlimited via WiFi.
As carriers continue to build out their data networks, as competition continues, and as higher bandwidth (e.g., 3G) iPhones become available (which has already been confirmed by Apple and AT&T several times), then we may see the landscape change for apps that use the carrier's network. It seems right now a common sense approach will be applied.
But it also seems clear that anything (as long as it's not specifically for porn, illegal, etc.) will be allowed via WiFi.
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Who is John Doerr? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you don't know who John Doerr [wikipedia.org] is by now, you need to turn in your Silicon Valley geek credentials.
Chip H.
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Dude, YOU need to turn in your geek credentials: here at
Re:Who is John Doerr? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Android (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Android (Score:5, Interesting)
A phone that's not available? That has no supporting infrastructure? No stores that sell it? No support staff ready, willing, and able to help? No iTunes? No backing from any major carrier? And no one, other than a few geeks, who care if it's "open", closed, or just cracked ajar?
Re:Android (Score:4, Interesting)
However, Google's Android OS is not and will never be a replacement for the iPhone or any other powerful smartphones, especially those running Windows Mobile. Consider:
Q: Can I write code for Android using C/C++?
A: Android only supports applications written using the Java programming language at this time.
As a Unix (NetBSD, Linux, & MacOSX) person, I hate to say this, but so far Microsoft is the good guy here, since their smartphones and Windows Mobile devices have the least restrictions for third party applications and developers.
Another problem with Android is that all of the proposed new phones (none of which have been released yet) for it will only have low-resolution QVGA (240x320) displays, which is literally half of the HVGA (320x480) display of the iPhone which has been available for more than half a year. This will make Android much harder to use for web surfing, office apps, etc. than the iPhone, or even Microsoft Windows Mobile phones, some of which have WVGA (800x480) displays.
Toshiba G900 [toshiba-europe.com]
Softbank X01T [softbank.jp]
Don't get me wrong, I love the look, feel, shape, sleekness, GUI, and interface of the iPhone and iPod touch. It blows everything else away. But as a business tool, Apple has decided too crippled its devices to the point that of being useless, especially when compared the uglier and bulky Windows Mobile phones.
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Why do you say this? I don't think the iPhone is "useless", in fact it's the most useful phone I've ever owned. As for the business perspective, I work for a "large company", and I carry a blackberry (the defacto business-oriented mobile device). I don't see anything that my blackberry does that the iPhone won't be able to do with the new sdk & exchange integration.
Google has
Re:Android (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's take a look at a few reasons why Apple is currently doing pretty well in the smart phone market:
Look, I think Android will be a good platform, and that Google is going to put a lot of muscle behind it to limit Microsoft's reach in the mobile space and push their own interests instead. But saying "... Slap Android on a pure touchscreen phone ... [and you get an] ... Instant replacement for the iPhone ..." is a big, big stretch.
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I have a 4gb micro-sd card in my phone. How does the iPhone top this? I can bluetooth MP3s to it, use the cable that came with the phone, upload MP3s to my webserver and download them on the phone, MMS them, the list goes on.
Visual Voicemail? My phones have done that via MMS for years. MMS is far more powerful too.
Their hardware experience is so-say. My phone is the size of a
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If google makes the phone AND provides the service then of course they could open the whole thing BUT that will certainly limit their distribution channels and that would kill the platform before it
Finally (Score:2)
Get TomTom on that and I'm there.
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*Yes, I know the CDMA Blackberrys are EV-DO
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Re:Unfinished toy ?!? Which Functions are unfinish (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, the phone works just fine w/o 3G
I'd be quite concerned if it didn't actually. Bit expensive for a phone though - they give away handsets if you just want to talk on the phone.
Then, there's WiFi when you're at your home, office, friends' places or congenial coffee shop. Damn sight better'n 3G. All the data you want.
psst - other mobiles have WiFi too you know. The point however is all the bandwidth in the world is utterly useless if the device in question can't talk the protocols you require, such as to use a VPN for example.
And even when you rely on EDGE, it works just great for SMS, maps, weather and other nibbles of the 'net. Even email, as long as you don't expect it'll be faster than Blackberry, the supposed one to beat.
Developer fee = unlock for OSS? (Score:3, Insightful)
The big unanswered question for me is 'can I unplug my iPhone and still use my beta App?'. If the answer is yes, then open source software can be spread without going through Apple simply by sharing the source code. If this is the case then paying the developer fee amounts to unlocking the phone's app restrictions.
Has anyone tried this yet?
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Not quite. As I understand it, the SDK is free, and you can compile apps and beta test them on an iPhone connected to the dev machine with the standard cable. If you pay $99, you can sell your apps through Apple.
But your big unanswered question still stands, and is one I'm going to be putting to the test once I get to grips with the SDK.
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I downloaded the SDK yesterday. You cannot even BUILD a deployable target without the key. It throws an actual build error indicating that it cant find your key in the Keychain.
The only thing you can do without the key, from what I can tell, is run apps in the simulator (which sucks, by the way).
You need pornography on portable devices! (Score:5, Funny)
And now Steve Jobs wants to stand in the way of all those infertile couples who want to have children!
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Though it does have the full internet, he's not blocking the internet, which has TONS of porn. He's just not going to allow porn software installed, which I guess means no strip poker, etc. Damn. Wonder if I can get cartoon porn through them
Unlocking already done (Score:2)
Anyone watched the keynote? (Score:3, Informative)
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John Doerr (Score:5, Insightful)
Doerr is a really sharp guy who saw potential in companies like Compaq, Sun, Symantec, Netscape, Amazon, and Google. The thing is that Doerr knows how to look at a business plan, understand the market opportunity a company wants to try to exploit, and have an idea of how likely the company is to be successful at doing it. So yes, Netscape, Amazon, and Google were "internet companies," but they were also companies with business plans that had not-entirely-ridiculous paths to profitability. Keep in mind that VCs typically have an awful "batting average" and invest in a lot more duds than eventual superstars, but the really big successes are generally good enough to make the overall average ROI, including the flops, quite positive.
A big part of the problem in the late 1990s is that a lot of VCs looked at Doerr's investments and basically came to this conclusion: "Doerr made a load of money for Kleiner Perkins by investing in the internet, so we have to invest in the internet." So in the late 1990s, many businesses that were basically "just like [whatever], but on the internet) were given ridiculous amounts of funding even when there was no clear path to profitability in the business plan. Yes, it's true that a VC firm can still make money in an environment like that of the mid-to-late 1990s by funding a company and taking it public as soon as it starts to show revenue growth, getting a big ROI on something that is never going to be profitable. But eventually the house of cards falls and then there's an overreaction as people say "oh, we lost all this money investing in the internet, so now we should avoid such investments," even when a good business plan appears.
I worked at a software startup in 1999. We had tests done with major retailers that proved we could increase the profitability of a given category anywhere from 25% to over 100%, depending on what the retailer's strategy was for that category (read up on "category management" for more info on category strategies). In the meetings with arrogant moron VCs, the founders would tell them about this and show them the actual data that supported the claim, plus testimonials from executives in the (multi-billion dollar) retailers where the tests were done, and the VCs' eyes would kind of glaze over. As soon as the founders stopped talking, the VCs would say something like "uh huh... so, what's your internet story." I suggested to the guy who had the original idea for the company that we should change the name to "e-[original name of company].com" and we'd be swimming in money.
The saddest thing was that apparently one such moron was from Kleiner Perkins Caulfield and Byers, which was widely seen as the VC firm at the time, in no small part due to the remarkable business vision of John Doerr. It would have been more accurate, from what I heard from very reliable sources, to say that Kleiner Perkins was a good VC firm with VCs of varying quality (yes, a high average, though), and John Doerr was the venture capitalist.
I'm not a fan of VCs in general, but I have a lot of respect for John Doerr. And if he's setting up a fund this big for iPhone app development, that makes me think very good things are coming for Apple through the iPhone. Very good things.
As always, YMMV.
Encryption and other features? (Score:2)
30% return for a small investment? (Score:2, Insightful)
In typical Silicon Valley hyperbole Doerr summed up the move as the beginning of a new world order. The iPhone, he said, is "bigger than the personal computer..."
The iPhone is locked to one provider. The iPhone will soon have unlocked competitors. It certainly will never be "bigger than the personal computer". The iPhone is basically only another cellular phone, and most people use their phones only to make phone calls.
Appare
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You're mixing up Apple's AppStore distribution method (which takes 30%) with the iFund which is run by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Whatever deal a given developer thrashes out with them is their trade secret.
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The iPhone is locked to one provider. The iPhone will soon have unlocked competitors. It certainly will never be "bigger than the personal computer". The iPhone is basically only another cellular phone, and most people use their phones only to make phone calls.
Well, if you're just counting the US, sure. In Japan and most east Asian countries people live on their phones and expect them to do things like: have real e-mail, view webpages, gps and have services like weather, train schedules and whatnot.
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In fact, I would go so far as to say that within 10 years, that sort of handheld will be most people's personal computers. Laptops are already edging out desktops, as they're typically as powerful and as expensive for most users - and far more flexible. It won't be long before handhelds edge out laptops for the same reason. And the longer that single-thr
SDK is Intel-only: solution! (Score:2)
My excitement over the SDK was somewhat doused when I read it isn't PPC compatible. Since my best Mac is a G4 powerbook, that would have been my environment for coding my dream iPhone app. I don't have the resources to buy a new Intel powerbook just to code apps for my iPhone.
Exploring options, I found that the OSX86 scene is thriving [osx86project.org] with successful installs on beige box PCs. Now I can turn my quad-core 2.4 ghz intel box into an iPhone IDE! Hooray!
Seth
Apple also licensed ActiveSync (Score:2)
This would make iPhones a serios competetor to business phones like Blackberrys et al.
Re:When? (Score:5, Informative)
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AKA they don't have a way yet.
A lot of this rings hollow, the whole "BIG DEAL" about the iPhone. It's a nice device sure, but there are a lot of nice devices. I just don't see the appeal to developers considering that the distribution model appears locked down, apple seems hell bent on selling anything it can to developers (ever heard of FREE?), and appl
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Re:When? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Exchange (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Exchange (Score:4, Informative)
You mean outside of Windows Mobile DirectPush, which does everything that the iPhone does and more?
I'm glad to see Exchange support on the iPhone, but let's not pretend here. The things they licensed from Microsoft were already supported by Windows Mobile anyway, and have been supported for some time now.
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RTFA and WTFV (Score:2)
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Re:Lost chance to build up Juggernaut momentum (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure Apple is worried a lot about something that "looks like" a "potential", "future" winner.
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It's good that we agree on this.
Something else that is probably worrying them is that Android is backed by Google. It looks like google wants this, and they can make Android a success all by themselves. It's no secret Google wants in on the mobile market (I know you know this, but there are others out there who are less informed), and with the kind of innovative aggression they've shown with their other p
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Not really. The success will come with the successful cooperation between Google, handset manufacturers and carriers.
Re:Lost chance to build up Juggernaut momentum (Score:4, Insightful)
Google couldn't make Google Video a success so they gave up and bought YouTube, dumping their paid service.
Google does search pretty well. For now, anyway. With all the focus on these non-search related businesses, I wonder how much longer Google's dominance in search will continue. Anybody else notice that Google doesn't return as many relevant answers as they used to? I now spend a lot more time than I used to tweaking searches to get what I really want and not googletroll sites. The other businesses that Google gets involved with aren't all rousing successes, even when they're intrinsically related to searching, such as Google Maps. Mapquest still dominates that market, IIRC.
Google has a lot of money, but that does not guarantee success. Microsoft has a lot of money too, and they can't even get their search off the ground.
Finally, PRODUCT > !PRODUCT, almost every time.
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See: IBM vs everyone; IE vs Firefox; Windows vs OSX; Windows vs Linux; Microsoft vs Google...
Don't compare current products to future products. (Score:3, Insightful)
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I'm sure Apple is worried a lot about something that "looks like" a "potential", "future" winner.
Well they should be.
The iphone DOESN'T look look like it will be a future winner. Don't get me wrong, they've got a great product, but they are going to have a tough time venturing outside of the teenage "OMG ITS SO CUTE" market with this.
IF and ONLY if they had actually included a full qwerty keyboard with this would they have had a shot. I can type on my blackberry (7520, and nextel can have it when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers) in the dark, without looking at it, with one hand.
Its quick, its
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So, a wildly popular handset doesn't look like a future winner, and a completely productless handset does?
You should go into the venture capital business.
Re:Lost chance to build up Juggernaut momentum (Score:4, Insightful)
The one thing I can see as a problem, is that enterprises are not going to like not being able to distribute internal software to them.
Bob
Re:Lost chance to build up Juggernaut momentum (Score:5, Informative)
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The flip side... (Score:3, Insightful)
No more hoping that more than one user out of a hundred will pay the shareware fee or make a "donation". No more playing whack-a-mole with crack sites and serial numbers. And by promoting that development, and by providing the marketplace, Apple stands
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I must agree. One of the reasons I never bothered writing an app for my Treo (a timecode calculator in this case) was on account of the copious amounts of "IR Beaming" piracy of titles. I knew only about one in a few hundred users of my program would ever pay me. At least on the iPhone platform, I can be assured that every user has to pay it, thus I can charge a very low price.
Cell phone companies make a tidy bit of change selling apps to kids on their sidekicks and corporate people who want the Good su
Clearly. (Score:3, Insightful)
You state that with such unapologetic conviction I almost have to laugh. What market share does Android have right now? And why exactly are Apple losing momentum? They are offering an outstanding platform that is rapidly approaching maturation and has gotten fantastic adoption rates. Furthermore, the iPhone will soon lose the last barrie
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Don't Get Your Hopes Up (Score:2)
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Ever written code for these "other phone substrates"? It's such a monumental pain in the arse that, assuming developers can be bothered at all, they'll certainly reimplement vast swathes of the application from the ground up due to fundamental (and often archaic) platform differences anyway. This SDK will more than likely clean up if only because it's a derivative of OS X and thus programming for it'll be a dream.
Is very any other phone where the software development VP would go live on stage and demonstrate writing a (tiny) application, compiling it, downloading it to the phone and running it, in front of a live audience?
Re:They're certainly going to need help. Consider (Score:5, Insightful)
1. the phone is not 3G, a 3G model should be out this year. Non multitasking? Meaning what, you want your phone to compress video for you while u talk? I can take notes, and use apps while on the phone so not sure what you mean. But you did throw the words bling-bling in to look like you are hip and know what you are talking about so i must be wrong here.
2. So since other organizations can't get developers, you do not think that Apple can? People want to develop for this platform so much that they are doing whatever they can to get on it, see http://www.modmyiphone.com/ [modmyiphone.com] . Not to even mention the 100 million dollar venture capitol fund for iphone apps that was shown off too.
3. So its so popular that people will do anything to be able to use one. Apple might not make the extra $ each month from these users but they are making money on each sale, and all those sales are just adding to marketshare.
4. Huh? Do you mean that a developer won't be able to make money writing iphone apps? You are seriously saying that the average developer would do better just putting up a web page and marketing their apps themselves rather than have it shown on a store dedicated to the iphone? Joe Schmoe can get the same exposure on the store as Adobe if they write a good app, thats very powerful for developers.
5. So what? Seriously, But also lets look at it the other way, did you watch the video from the event? Check the 5 developers that had 2 weeks to build apps. That was damned impressive. In some cases they started from scratch, and in some cases they just modified their existing code.
6. Not quite sure what you mean here, do you mean apple buying the companies/people that do the best apps? Or what?
It seems like people just want something to bitch about rather than using your heads.
Ducky
Re:They're certainly going to need help. Consider (Score:4, Insightful)
Well... I guess that flip side of that equation is that your code is Cocoa and Objective-C, which means that existing MAC developers have a leg up in porting versions of their applications to the iPhone. And that any iPhone application you create can have it's code moved over to the mothership OS relatively easily.
How many Symbian applications can I write that, with a few changes here and there, run just fine under OS X?
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Sure you can port stuff. That's fine. You can do that (to a certain extent) with Windows Mobile, too. The "leg-up" reminds me of a dog and fire hydrant.
With current OSX frameworks, it's now time to disable lots of stuff you've come to enjoy. READ the docs. Please throw out your multitasking and other delicious inter-app communications frameworks; get lots of your information from your newly rebuilt parsers. Do the type-checking carefully, l
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1) as a rev 1.0, this one was
2) there is little doubt that Steve Jobs can sell shit on a shingle. Nice ideas are then relegated to the scrap heap: good by XServe RAID SAN boxes, just to cite the most recent one
3) if Apple doesn't get the sales cont
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Re:No Exchange Push, No Deal (Score:5, Insightful)
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You know less than you think (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple has shown that, yes it is tenable.
When you buy a Windows Mobile handheld today, how many other OS'es can you load on it? What about Palm? All these companies have shown what you claim