I was wondering your thoughts of companies who have fallen behind WM5.

I know WM5 hasn't proved to be the most stable OS to date (personal company excluded), but, how quickly do you think leading companies should roll out WM5 compatable software of their own? For instance, if Sprite Backup is a leading backup/restore utility which it certainly appears to be, why don't they have a WM5 product yet? Is it because they're waiting to get a better feel for WM5 and it's stability? Do you think company executives feel that if they put their WM5 software on a WM5 device knowing WM5 has its problems, and then the WM5 hardware has problems/conflicts/software problems/etc that the company may feel the public may blame their software even though it may not be the fault of the software?

As a consumer in technology, I like companies on the leading edge. I feel companies selling software should be right on the tails of a new OS. I feel that companies just getting to WM5 software rollouts are behind, thus, in my feeble mind I do not consider companies just getting to WM5 products to be leading edge. That's not to say I won't buy their software, but it makes me look just a little harder.

It is extremely difficult to build a stable product on an unstable platform. By the time WM5.2 arrives the products will be as stable and widespread as they are now on WM2K3.2.

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I also think some of these 'companies' have day jobs.

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I personally thought this should have played a factor in pocketpcmags best of 2005. Everytime I looked found a piece of software in their listing that I was interested in, it seemed like there was no WM5 support. I could understand if the OS was totally overhauled but as I understand it, the changes to the API were minimal. In most cases all that would be needed is a recompile. In other cases the changes could be more substancial though. However, given the time that has passed, I think the WM5 offerings are still pretty pathetic.

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I complete agree with you!

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That is acceptable for the smaller devs, but not Sprite. Although they do have a beta and obviously creating a backup app is tied more to the OS than say, a game that may work on WM5 without changes.

Your questions asks about the "leading companies". They are not a leading company if they do not keep up with the latest OS. The one man shops get some slack, since they may have to buy a new device just to test!

   

You'd actually be surprised how much the underlying OS has changed. Even though the base APIs didn't change, we have to take into account the interaction between our apps and the OS itself.

Apps that rely on Outlook data have to be significantly upgraded as the POOM (Pocket Outlook Object Model) was updated. Applications that interact with the system at a lower level (such as WisBar Advance) have to take into account the slower speed of the OS as well as new inconsistencies introduced by new devices.

So, updating for WM5 can be a long and laborious task, especially for those of us who have day jobs.

I think the excellent range and quality of apps available, as well as the generally very good support (from those with day jobs right up through WebIS and other well-known developers)is one of the things that most makes you enjoy being a PPC user. I wouldn't think less of any developer who hasn't got WM5 going as quickly as others - but I do think the risk is that users are not patient, and may find a competitor product (if one's available) if their preferred provider doesn't at least have a definite timeframe for WM5 support.

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