Would you pay for WM6.0?

Mystik · 05-31-07, 09:41 AM

I'm thinking Dell is capable of releasing WM6.0 for the Ax (both X50 series and X51 (considering they're so simmilar)), but wont due to the explicit cost of actually having it done... cost of time, employees (programmers), testing, etc.

so i ask, if you own an X50/51 series Ax, would you pay a moderate amount ($25-$50) for the upgrade??

i don't think it'd be hard, just include MOST of the stuff that was already included, release a bare-bones version of the OS, no Hardware vendor support or applications (dell branded apps, like "home"), just have the basic OS, with the proper modules for input methods (touch-screen, On-Screen keyboard/transcriber/block reogniser), and the basic WM6.0 embedded apps (PIE, WMP10 (or is it 11?), BT Stack, etc... nothing fancy, just functional... and let the community debug/enhance it as they wish (maybe the Widdcomm stack?)

what say you? would you be willing to lend a hand in the development costs of releasing WM6.0 for the capability of having the new OS?

05-31-07, 09:49 AM

I definitely wouldn't pay for it and might not upgrade even if free. I don't need push email and don't see any advantages to going to WM6. My A12 X51v is working almost flawlessly and I don't want to screw that up with an upgrade.

Mystik · 05-31-07, 09:57 AM

Originally Posted by paulcb

I definitely wouldn't pay for it and might not upgrade even if free. I don't need push email and don't see any advantages to going to WM6. My A12 X51v is working almost flawlessly and I don't want to screw that up with an upgrade.

thats understandable, i'd pay just to see if it runs better, heck, i'd pay for dell to re-release WM5 without all the addons they put in the OS... there's a lot of junk in there i can't uninstall that Dell has put in for me that i don't use... about the only "Dell" app i actually touch is the WiFi Manager... apart from that it's all 3rd party/MS

05-31-07, 10:19 AM

Originally Posted by Mystik

thats understandable, i'd pay just to see if it runs better, heck, i'd pay for dell to re-release WM5 without all the addons they put in the OS... there's a lot of junk in there i can't uninstall that Dell has put in for me that i don't use... about the only "Dell" app i actually touch is the WiFi Manager... apart from that it's all 3rd party/MS

There's a WM6 forum for these types of questions. BTW WM6 is only renamed WM5SE

Mystik · 05-31-07, 10:47 AM

Originally Posted by Pedah

There's a WM6 forum for these types of questions. BTW WM6 is only renamed WM5SE

i know about the renaming... i thought that was kind of a low blow by MS... it's not REALLY the next version, we're just gonna make you think it is.

and i wasn't aware of a WM6.0 forum... only individual threads per devices... goes to show how often i look at the masterlist of forums. lol

anyways, do they already have a poll like this up? or no?

05-31-07, 11:45 AM

No they don't have a thread up like this, iwont even vote cause it's not gonna happen. Please move to WM6 deploratorium

Mokubai · 05-31-07, 11:47 AM

Not really any polls as such, just many, *many* threads whining for or against it.

I just want a "do not show me this forum" button on the WM6 forum. It really is a waste of space. I see no economic or other reason at all for Dell to support a WM6 update and doubt that they can provide it without paying HTC to develop it as it is neither a Dell designed or manufactured device. Sure it has Dells name on it but as it is designed and manufactured by HTC on request from Dell I doubt Dell even have a true development team for the device. HTC cannot supply any details or support for the device themselves (and wouldn't if they could as the XDA series shows) as they would likely have signed an NDA with Dell and also signed over any support commitments, and would only provide support when contracted to do so.

I wouldn't mind WM6, but I would not pay for it as WM5 works perfectly well. WM6 is not really a true "upgrade" as it does not give any benefits that cannot be achieved by other means. Encryption and data privacy can be done by any number of other programs, HTML email too can be done elsewhere, updated instant messaging is maybe a benefit.... What other true benefits are there? Honestly?

What is wrong with the "Bundled" applications? AFAIK almost all of the applications on the device are MS bundled ones with the exception of the Home, Switcher, Backup and Oddessy programs. What does it matter that they are there, on the X51v you have 190MB to install stuff in, I've think I've got quite a lot installed and still have 160MB free.

05-31-07, 04:34 PM

Hmm take look at my thread in the WM6 area to get an idea of what you can do to get as much as you can from WM6 onto WM5, without messing with the ROM.

I voted yes because I always preffer the new and official but after I compliled my list I have no need to buy it, see it for yourselves. ;)

currahee2100 · 05-31-07, 04:36 PM

Can we please drop this? I mean, we already know Dell isn't going to be dropping an Update. Plus, with the WM5 update gone wrong, what makes you think that WM6 would be any better? Dell had to release the X51 series in order to get WM5 working on their PDAs... granted WM5 behaves very differently than WM2k3SE...

Mystik · 05-31-07, 05:38 PM

Originally Posted by Mokubai

What is wrong with the "Bundled" applications? AFAIK almost all of the applications on the device are MS bundled ones with the exception of the Home, Switcher, Backup and Oddessy programs. What does it matter that they are there, on the X51v you have 190MB to install stuff in, I've think I've got quite a lot installed and still have 160MB free.

well, my thought is as follows: dell wants their stuff to work well 100% of the time, so they likely wrote some script to keep stuff, even if you're not using it, in memory, behind the 48MB of user accessable RAM (out of 64)... continually executing, and consuming RAM. basic TSR type programs... who knows what else they may have on there... i'm not pro on the startup scripts, so i can't exactly find them and tweak them out...

i just want more system resources available to current applications more often. i don't usually do many things at once on my PDA, but there is noticable lag at times... i don't believe there SHOULD be though... 624Mhz on an embedded OS should be plenty... seems like it isn't.

Mystik · 05-31-07, 05:47 PM

Originally Posted by currahee2100

Can we please drop this? I mean, we already know Dell isn't going to be dropping an Update. Plus, with the WM5 update gone wrong, what makes you think that WM6 would be any better? Dell had to release the X51 series in order to get WM5 working on their PDAs... granted WM5 behaves very differently than WM2k3SE...

WM5 to WM6 would be more simmilar to WM2003 to WM2003SE ... where there isn't much difference... especially considering WM6 is numbered Version 5.5 (i believe?).

regardless, my thought process in *not dropping it* is this: Dell will likely release the OS given there's some economic advantage to do so. such as, a willing and capable pool of consumers to compensate their costs and give them a fair return... ($50 per device across several hundred devices should earn a fair enough return + cover development costs)... like any business, they're in business to generate revenue.

however, they're unlikely to do the market research to determine the demand for such a product (and thereby be able to estimate profitability of exploring such an avenue) as it would cost more money... taking away from the profitability of their product (which is already low... this shows because they CANCELLED development)...

HOWEVER, i feel, if we can show, clearly enough, that there IS profit to be earned in developing WM6.0 for x50/X51 users, through payment per licence, then the market research is done for them... all they have to do is make the decision whether they want to earn that revenue or not...

of course it is a risk either way, but at least this way, it'll show, percentage wise, how many X51 users, and how many X50 users would be interested in buying such an upgrade...

see what i'm getting at? i'm slowly trying to not just complain about the problem, but get REAL Stats showing that people want to try this out.

I for one, would pay upwards of $50 for a WM6.0 licence and working copy to build on and customize on my Ax. if it doesn't work out, meh, downgrade and keep runnin' with WM5.0. we all know A12 works pretty good... so there's a failsafe for most, if not all, ax users that wanna try it.

Mokubai · 06-01-07, 11:24 AM

I have wandered my way through both the registry and filesystem and done various searches on forums and the like, and Dell isn't "hiding" any programs that are not critical to the running of your operating system. Basically, just go into \Windows\Startup and delete anything you *know* you don't use and that is all you can free up.... poutlook.lnk, splash and odclient are all that are worth it there.

I am often running a few programs at once Coreplayer, Hallireader, PIE and Total Commander to name a few and I've almost always got at least 15MB free and no sluggishness or slowdowns that I can tell of. Occasionally PIE goes a bit weird and sluggish but it's nothing a close and restart doesn't solve.

I can see that there are people out there who want the upgrade, but I don't see how there can ever be enough for Dell to actually make any money out of it. It would need literally thousands of guaranteed buyers at $50 a pop for them to break even considering the development man-hours (think about a dev-team of maybe 5 hardware devs who earn $35,000 a year for a couple of weeks, then testing teams and so on, then manufacturing the CDs, the list goes on), and I doubt you'll get more than 50 to 100 people who'll vote either way in this poll. Even the ones who vote yes may change their minds later or will wait to see how it goes with others before buying, making it more difficult for Dell to sell and make money from them.

You say you want Dell just to give you a licence and "some files" to play with. The cannot release any product that is not to the best of their knowledge a working finished release. They could put all the warnings they like around it saying "use this at your own risk" and their reputation would be critically damaged by releasing substandard stuff and *still* get sued by some yokel who says he turned his device into a brick because he had no idea what he was doing. Dell also cannot release the WM6 dev kit software without express permission from Microsoft as they would essentially be allowing people to write software for any device they could get their hands on and once again both companies would take one hell of a fallout for whatever went wrong and possibly lost revenues.

$50 is, to be honest, far too steep a price for what will be such a minor upgrade for me. I'm still waiting for someone to tell me what is so great about it that it has become their lifelong dream to have it on their device.

06-01-07, 11:42 AM

I'm looking for WM6 upgrade for my MDA
WM5 sucks, esp MSBT
and slow

cchiang12 · 06-01-07, 12:09 PM

wm6 is going to destroy my axim... much like wm5 from a wm2003.

Mystik · 06-01-07, 06:05 PM

Originally Posted by Mokubai

I have wandered my way through both the registry and filesystem and done various searches on forums and the like, and Dell isn't "hiding" any programs that are not critical to the running of your operating system. Basically, just go into \Windows\Startup and delete anything you *know* you don't use and that is all you can free up.... poutlook.lnk, splash and odclient are all that are worth it there.

I can see that there are people out there who want the upgrade, but I don't see how there can ever be enough for Dell to actually make any money out of it. It would need literally thousands of guaranteed buyers at $50 a pop for them to break even considering the development man-hours (think about a dev-team of maybe 5 hardware devs who earn $35,000 a year for a couple of weeks, then testing teams and so on, then manufacturing the CDs, the list goes on), and I doubt you'll get more than 50 to 100 people who'll vote either way in this poll. Even the ones who vote yes may change their minds later or will wait to see how it goes with others before buying, making it more difficult for Dell to sell and make money from them.

while you have some good points, there are also some things you obviously don't know much about... costs are actually a lot lower than you'd think... producing a CD, one more unit is nickels, if that... and i wouldn't even say they'd go that far... i'm talking raw dev. costs, 2, or 3 software developers, public test realms and debugging... seriously, has there been any software "bug" that the community hasn't eventually fixed?

given enough time, with enough people who want it, eventually you're gonna find those that can do it... and they will, and with any luck, those that can, will share. prime example: the user "football" on XDA-Developers.com ... making a cooked WM5.0 ROM for the Ax. sure it's got bugs, but he's not giving up, and i'm sure the community is grateful for that, despite all the bitching thats already happened. fyi, i'll likely upgrade when he fixes the CF issue (as i have a 2GB CF card i would rather not do without)...

base fact is: if they don't, eventually we will. only difference, is EVENTUALLY. the community takes a lot more time to band together and get stuff done than a corporation... mainly because corporations are run on money... aka incentive... to actually get to the release of WM6 for the Ax, wouldn't be as complex as you make it out to be... most, if not all WM5 drivers will work for WM6... a lot of the improvements are made in the core... not that part of the OS. there are subtle changes, but tweaking the code here and there, not that much of a problem. if they mess something up (like they did with A02 for the X50 WM5.0 upgrade), eventually, we'll find a way around it... just like they did with the A02 WM5.0 ROM for X50... just like we will for every other issue we find.

we didn't like the MS BT stack... poof widcomm.

we didn't like WMP10 for mobile.... TCPMP, Mortplayer, etc.

we didn't like the limits of the GUI... Tweaks, and programs like "wizbar advance"...

everything thats in error, we can fix... eventually. what we need is the core OS from Dell, so the developers in the community can create apps and midifications for it, so each individual can customize it how they want it... making that core OS, is the generic WM6.0 package, with messaging, for email/IM, etc... +Drivers (that already exist), then package, and generally test the installer to make sure the OS boots... slap warnings everywhere saying this is not and endorsed application by Dell, nor will it be supported... make all that legal and stuff... big deal. $50 each would yield a profit on only a few hundred licences... (5k - 10k) ... the big question is: will the 5k - cost = enough profits to make Dell actually wanna do it?

i dunno. i don't assume so. but hell, this is a better idea than sitting around going "I WANT WM6.0!!!11!1!" like some raving noob. so how about this: accept that maybe this wont work (i already have), let the experiment continue and watch the results. if we get WM6.0, yay. if not... it was better than sitting around stewing in our own self-pity.