Mike Calligaro_MSFT (Expert):
Q: The i-mate JAM/HTC Magician community is abuzz with a possible build of WM5 for them. While I understand it's not up to Microsoft, can you at least confirm the existence of WM5 running on that device? It's rumored impossible due to 64MB ROM limitation.
A: We can NOT confirm the existance of a WM5 build for that device. However, I can say that 64M ROM meets the requirements for WM5. The device is likely CAPABLE of being upgraded. But the majority of devices are not upgraded, so you shouldn't expect it will happen.
Some of our other questions answered here:
http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?t=715582
So that kills the lie that device manufacturers and operatiors have been spreading that 64Mb is not sufficient to run WM5. This is no surprise but just emphasises the point that these companies have NO interest in their customers and only want to get as much as they can out of us while ignoring our concerns or issues. Well done HTC and co.
I too have a S100 and I too want to have WM5.0.
But, remember, they are a company. They are supposed to earn money. Do you work for free? They surelly don't.
You get what you pay for, a phone with WM2003SE, just like when you buy a laptop it will came with WindowsXP and they will not give you windows vista for free.
And you must also take in account that porting drivers to WM5.0 is time/man power consuming. It is better for them to make a new product and stick WM5 to it. If you want WM5 you buy the new model.
Of course, if they have a new magician with WM5.0, I think they could upgrade the older ones, because they would nnot have a cost associated with R&D just for older models. But even in that situation, I suppose Microsoft cashs a license for every copy of WM5 shipped on a phone, so, HTC would have to pay Microsoft for every copy of upgraded WM5.0 they gave.
WM5.0 just for us, well... forget about it. It would require driver development and testing. And they then need to support two operating systems, because people would start to ***** if their device fails with WM5.
HTC would be a great company if they provide us WM5. If they don't, well, I don't think they don't care about customers. They are just a normal company, not an outstanding one. That's all.
PS: i'm not related with HTC in any way. this is just my way of understanding corporate business.
I don't know what the fuss is all about but what so good about this Magneto? I mean everyone is feeling they've lost out but I think the 2003SE version works great. Making the most of what we have through self hacking and innovation is what this forum stands for... this is what made this forum so great...
WM2003SE IS a great OS. Just like Windows 98SE (except the occasional crashes). But we still have moved on to the newer technology of XP, right? With each new step up in OS, new possibilities are unveiled. Either you run the latest OS and get the option to run the latest programs taking advantage of that, or you don't. It's as simple as that.
I don't think anyone expects HTC to make WM5 run on the Magician, and then give it to us for free. They are here to make money. We all know that, considering how much most of us paid for the Magician. But why is the only option to buy new HARDWARE? If your P4 runs Windows XP just fine, will you find it ok to have to buy a new PC, just to be able to run Vista? Of course not.
We need more companies to take care of their current users base, by providing OS upgrades that you pay for! I don't know how much developement is needed to make all the drivers and so on, but personally I would be happy to pay $100 for WM5, since the hardware part of the Magician suits me quite nice for the moment. Then, in 6-12 months or so, when a fast, small qwerty equipped VGA PDA with built in wifi and GPS is made available, I will replace my device. But that is because I want better HARDware, not better SOFTware. Huge difference!
efjay said:
So that kills the lie that device manufacturers and operatiors have been spreading that 64Mb is not sufficient to run WM5.
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It is not necessarily a lie.
I remember when we upgraded the IPAQ 3800 to the WM2003 back then which was supposed to "need" more ROM than the IPAQs had.
Some WM components like Media Player or Terminal Services Client were not in the ROM, but on the CD as installable programs, so only the core OS was in ROM.
I figure that this is the case here too.
The WM5 core OS+apps might be installable in 64MB (some apps probably to install afterwards), but the complete feature set of WM5 might need 128MB.
HP will offer upgrades to WM5 for the IPAQ hx2000 series which has 64MB ROM and later for the hx4700 which already has 128MB.
So it was clear to me that 64MB ROM is not the reason for NOT upgrading a device.
The use of components that will get no WM5 driver might be a reason, for instance old Bluetooth or video chips or memory controller or whatever.....but the Magician is not old enough to have such "outdated" components I guess...
So this leads to the simple realization that HTC will not provide a Magician upgrade simply for marketing reasons - they want to sell their Wizard and Universal now....
And if the manifacturer does not support WM5, I doubt that OEMs like T-Mobile, O2, Vodafone, or even QTek will bother.
After all they want to sell the same new HTC devices....
I happen to work in a similar field.
This is probably a case of 98% marketing decision with 2% technical reasoning.
As you might recall - companies are alive to make their shareholders happy - and one of the greatest and most proven ways of getting your shareholders smiling is to sell a lot and make a huge profit. There is of course more to it like ... public brand awareness, customer satisfaction, environmental and social responsibility and other BS but... making huge profits that either flow to the SH as dividends or raises the price of the stock in the case of a publicly traded company is the 100% proven way to make the guys happy.
Now... guess how you make a big profit? you sell many many devices ... and this you achieve by diversifying your product line. This is really tough in a comodity market (cellphones are a comodity these days) - so you do your best and if WM5 is a big deal feature - why not make new devices that are marginally improved but one major improvement is WM5? I guess that's the force-majore behind most of these decisions. Nobody is trying to screw anybody - and I happen to have a Magician too so I too really want WM5 - but on the other hand such is life and such is the way that most businesses are operated. I guess we shouldn't expect too much.
Cheers, Lisa
I fully agree that providing an upgrade to WM5 is up to the manufacturers/operators. The point i was trying to make was the amount of rom on the Magician was given as an excuse as to why it would not be given an upgrade. With the reply from the Microsoft live chat and also the announcement by HP that they will be producing the rx1950/1955 which only have 64MB rom we know this to be untrue. HTC, Imate and other operators have every right to decide that it is uneconomical to produce an upgrade for their older devices, (even though HP and Dell obviously think otherwise and are offering upgrades on some of their devices); I just dont see why they didnt just say so instead of trying to fool people.
WM2003SE is an ok os but some of the improvements in WM5 such as persistent storage, better battery life, better bluetooth and supposedly a more stable OS are features that would be welcome on our devices. No one can deny the current devices have serious problems with bluetooth, stability and of course battery life. Improvements in these areas would be welcomed and if there is a charge for the upgrade that is acceptable; no one is saying that they should just give it away. I actually have a Blue Angel device and im sure BA owners could tell you of their problems with bluetooth and wifi. Im pretty happy with my device apart from the occasional lockup but i would welcome an upgrade to WM5 rather than having to cough up and buy a new device. The current crop of WM5 devices are pretty underwhelming for me - the Uni is too big and wont be easy to use one-handed; the Wizard uses miniSD. So I wouldnt be buying a new device now anyway. Im just tired of companies just placing profit above all else, thats all
Don't get me wrong efjay - I agree with you and I would be extremely happy if I can get my magician running wm5.
Anyway, it's now a waiting game and I guess we will find out if HTCs business model includes WM5 for the MA or the BA.
One more thing to consider is that these companies work on a project basis - which means that they allocate the best and the finest engineers for project X (i.e. - Blueangel or Magician) - once the project is over - then only a few engineers are left with the crap job of supporting the "older projects" and the best engineers are allocated to newer models - so if you take into consideration that HTC has let's say two current "new" models (universal, wizard) which I am pretty sure that by now the good engineers are no longer allocated for - instead they are probably allocated to the two next gen devices which must be in the pipeline if the company has the will to survive... so frankly thinking about it - the Blueangel and the Magician are "older generation" devices that are in a status of "they are working so don't touch..." - i.e. - no chance on earth that they plan to venture into anything major with these devices apart from necessary evil - like repairing super critical show stopping bugs or faults...
Sorry to paint such a dark picture - but this is corporate life. But... still one should always hope...
True as it may sound, I'm still happy how things are going for me ofcourse there will a hundred more things I' like. Sometimes I wish HTC were as organized as Palm. But then again...
lisa1982, thats a very interesting insight into corporate operations. I wont hold my breath but will welcome it if it does.
HBK said:
WM2003SE IS a great OS. Just like Windows 98SE (except the occasional crashes). But we still have moved on to the newer technology of XP, right?
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Yeah, but I bet youre not using the same PC you had in 1998.
Personally I'd rather have a device that comfortably runs WM2003SE than one that struggles to run WM2005.
E-TEN Information Systems today officially announced the Windows Mobile 5.0 upgrade program for its current E-TEN brand M500 Pocket PC Phone Edition.
And you have got to admit that both device bare many simularities. So what im wondering is if we can get a hold of thier rom and mod it, or even place some
preasure on I-mate / HTC to give us a little x-mas present early for being such good custome and devoted Imate jammers. I think this path of getting WM5
is a little more feasable than waiting for some of the other solution posted on this forum.
Donno what do you guys think?
No, for a number of reasons.
1. The hardware is different between the E-TEN M500 and the HTC Magician. From processor to memory configuration to video display to camera, there's just too many variables that would make it futile compared to attempting to make a build from another HTC device, if that is even feasible.
2. The WM5 upgrade for the E-TEN M500 will be available no earlier than December 2005. I am hoping that someone would have provided a hacked WM5 build for the Magician before then.
I think the second solution is first to try. Please give us the link of the source of ur news, and should one of our members who speak english natively start to suggest a letter pushing of CDL (carrer devices company, the owner of imate) to develop a new wm2005 rom for JAM. After getting the email of CDL CEO (I think it is easy and avaialible somewre in the forum) we start all to send that letter. I think CDL should respons, or all of us will forward to Eten company as it respects its customers rather than CDL.
The site where the new was found is:
http://www.etencorp.com/presscenter/press.php?pid=45&tid=0
whats getting to me is that Eten , a crappy novalty Pocket Pc company has an update compiled form Microsoft, why cant Imate get them to do us one. This is the 3rd time this has happen to me, I mean when I got my first pocket pc (F-S Pocket Loox 600) the support team alienated its customers and lost many of us even though it later PPC releases were of better quality. HP has done this too with the 19xx series and 63xx series. But from what iI heard Imate had regular updates and free firmware. Looks like they going to follow the same path.
I think all of the distributors of this device, CDL, QTek, Orange, T-Mobile et-al should be pressed for a WM5 upgrade for the magician. Also we should press HTC who actually manufacture it.
That way the distributors and mobile operators might apply thier own pressure to HTC as well as ours. If HTC are being pressed from both sides then maybe they will do something.
In the meantime we await buzz's unofficial version.
Theres a way of starting an online petition we did it to Fujitsi-siemens for the loox and suprisingly it work. Took some time but they went back on there word. But we need on of Admins here in forum who have a little more pulling power than me. I have been read about Buzz's cracked version but i havent put too much faith in it, I guess just preparing for the worst I guess. Any one want to take the responsiblity for it???
Best way is to vote with your wallets and dont buy HTC products and switch to Eten. That is the only language corporations understand, money. If they see their customer base switching they will MAYBE think twice.
Why don't we just start to hit their boards to release the magneto for us at [email protected] ? Or else someone has a better way to contact a CEO :lol:
Blueangels, Magicians, Alpine can handle the magneto and even the Himalayas, any suggestions are welcomed..
Damn, ETEN is a crapy ppc and they are releasing the Magneto!!
efjay said:
Best way is to vote with your wallets and dont buy HTC products and switch to Eten. That is the only language corporations understand, money. If they see their customer base switching they will MAYBE think twice.
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the folowing is my history:
Wallabay------> Qtek for one year
Himalaya------> imate (2 different devices as one was stolen) for more than 2 years
Magician-------> Imate Jam Currently for around 6 months
Eten-----------> near future after throwing away CDL products for ever.
I usually don't respect any one does not respect me. CDL is not respecting us, while eten respecting their cutomers, so i think i should switch to eten. From the commercial point of view, i think that it is more benifitial to CDL to release a wm2005 for their old products (not ancient one like wallabay or himallaya) as they will gain the following:
1- they will be respectable from us as this will raise their cutomer support score very much, and will attract new customers as it will be known that the post sale support of CDL is perfect.
2- Their new devices such as JasJar is going will by self pushing power as a new product and will attract the valuable richer customers even old devices such as JAM supports wm2005 or not. In the same time the JAm which is still present in stock with a huge quantitiy start losing attractiveness and its sale curve will decline so much. While there is a large slice of cutomers who cannot afford for JasJar but can afford for JAM but only if supports wm2005 and will go to nokia or sony erricson instead of JasJar, so why not to attract them to Jam by adding wm2005 to it.
3- I am sure that the profit from selling JasJar may be less than Jam as the technology of jasjar is more advanced, so if CDL sells 100 piece of jasjar it will gain for wxample a 10% profit, while if sells 100 piece of Jam it may be 15% profit, especially if we consider that the stock of jam is dead and it is a potential loss and will go to rubbish. So adding wm2005 to jam will revive it and not affecting the sales of jasjar in the same time as it is a new coming product and has its attractiveness.
Finally i hope that CDL, or all HTC affiliated companies rethink regarding this issue and try to continue competeing in this market that of course the winner is the one who respects his customers.
The rumoured xda atom lookslike the magician with WM 2005. Maybe once this device is widely available, someone can hack the ROM.
Greets.
I'm sorry that I'm not with you when you try to boycott HTC.
Eten sold his M500 with the wm5 upgrade clearly advertised. It was a sell point, so, they sold more M500 because ppl were expecting WM5.
HTC did not advertise any of his S1X0 with wm5. If they were to give away wm5, they would advertise at least S110 to be wm5 ready, and it would be a sell point too. They would win money because of the addded value of wm5.
None of us were ripped-off, and, as they keep supporting in a good way our magicians, they are doing their work. They care for us, as they give us rom updates. Not giving us something that is not free, does not turn them bad, or does not mean they don't care about us (well, of course no corp cares for ppl, they care for income! eten does too). Remember, if they give you WM5 for free, they need to support it, and develop some specific things for it. And ppl will keep magician for a longer time, and will not buy theyre new products like the 9100 and so on.
They will in fact loose money. Do you loose money when you work? I surelly don't.
One possible pressure is for us to call our network operators, and start complaining with them. And better, if companys start blaming for not having WM5 for a so much hyped (by operators) product.
Operators themselves are incredibly more powerfull that any of our petition, IMO.
Even that way, I really doubt that we will see WM5 for S100 (it is my opinion, not a rant). Maybe for christmas, with santa giving it to us.
I am looking forward for the new Mitac Mio with gps and wm5. Now thats what I call a all-in-one
I'm waiting for the Mio as well. My only reason for trading the Magician is .... WM5!!
And guess what, my next device after the Mitac Mio would probably be .... another Mitac!!
So yes, HTC will probably lose money in the near future. Keeping your existing customers happy is much easier than getting new ones!
On the other hand, if a WM5 ROM (hacked or not) becomes available before the Mitac launch, I'll stick to the Magician (my preferred option).
rjtd said:
Eten sold his M500 with the wm5 upgrade clearly advertised. It was a sell point, so, they sold more M500 because ppl were expecting WM5.
HTC did not advertise any of his S1X0 with wm5. If they were to give away wm5, they would advertise at least S110 to be wm5 ready, and it would be a sell point too. They would win money because of the addded value of wm5.
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Great point I agree but Imaging how much more love we would have for our babies is the have a face lift. I mean think of sending you girlfriend to get a new set of boobs. You would play with then all day!!
Anyway lets hope they give us the option if its possible, instead of only making it available as a selling point for there next device which is more probable. Even if we have to pay and ammount say $40 for the upgrade it would be great!!
Cheers all
kta said:
I'm waiting for the Mio as well. My only reason for trading the Magician is .... WM5!!
And guess what, my next device after the Mitac Mio would probably be .... another Mitac!!
So yes, HTC will probably lose money in the near future. Keeping your existing customers happy is much easier than getting new ones!
On the other hand, if a WM5 ROM (hacked or not) becomes available before the Mitac launch, I'll stick to the Magician (my preferred option).
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Just to consider from the money point of view, in either way, you stay with Magician or purchase a new Mio, HTC is not going to make new profit. Then the question arises: why do they need to endeavor to make you stay with Magician?
zenkle said:
Just to consider from the money point of view, in either way, you stay with Magician or purchase a new Mio, HTC is not going to make new profit. Then the question arises: why do they need to endeavor to make you stay with Magician?
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No Zenkle, i am not agree with u, if i bought MIO, so, i will try a new handset and a new company with a new style and post sale support, so may i found them better and will stick to them and don't use HTC anymore. But if i have an upgraded magician the next step will be JasJar or whatever HTC. Second, if i bought a MIO now, so i will upgrade after 1-3 years from now as i will have a brand new device, but if I ve an upgraded magician , i will upgrade for JasJar after 6 months to 1 year at max.
That's exactly the point. Keeping your customers loyal to the brand is all part of the business.
In addition to this, HTC or the carriers of this brand, will soon get the reputation of not releasing OS upgrades, while others (Samsung, ETEN, etc.) may be getting a more favourable reputation of releasing OS upgrades for their devices. This would sure help the latter increase their sales.
Trust me, if they do not give us WM5.0 is that because they would, in the end, loose money with it.
I bet they have ppl doing all the calculations for them.
Trust me, no calculations were required. They simply said, "we'll make them buy something new" and that was that.
BeyondtheTech said:
Trust me, no calculations were required. They simply said, "we'll make them buy something new" and that was that.
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And why not say that. Sure, people on this forum may not go back to HTC devices, but there's millions of others that will due to I-mate, O2, Orange and all the others selling these devices. And the profits made from these devices far outweigh the measly profits made from releasing a WM5 rom for the Magician.
My opinion, I want WM5 to play with, and I have no doubt it will eventually come out once someone gets their hands on a decent version (I'm not bringing up the whole other thread to do with buzz and raptorz). But, by the time I feel it's absolutely necessary to upgrade, not just because I want to, there will be some really beefy PDA phones available and my Jam will be obsolete anyway. Hence, a new phone. Maybe an HTC, may not be. Whatever's best for me at the time. And when I do get WM5, I wouldn't mind having official upgrades and support available for it.
Just my 2 cents worth. :lol:
So companies like HP, ETEN, Samsung and others did not do their calculations? Or they don't have new products in the pipeline? All of these companies are releasing an upgrade, and I'm sure they're thinking "customer service" and "returned customers".
Immediate profit vs long term investment in the brand ... look at o2, they're releasing the ATOM, a COPY of the HTC Magician with WM5 in December, I bet HTC will be losing on sales when this comes out. Had the Magician had a WM5 upgrade and being slightly cheaper than the Atom, the Magician would have a longer shelve life thus paying more for its R&D, etc.
I am looking for WM6 for HP iPAQ rw6828. I am also not sure what other names are used for this PDA?
I would appriciate if come one could help
Regards
svirk
No dice slick. HP aren't offering upgrades for their iPAQ range. Sorry, feel free to write to HP and illuminate to them the plethora of other companies offering upgrades, and HPs poor customer service by not doing likewise.
This is the 'beauty' of HP. Its simple , you want an upgrade - Just buy a new device. Thats their policy
But in HP's defence HTC wasnt going to offer WM6 upgrades until Dopod, O2, TMobile and some other network operators announced they would offer upgrades.
Then again HTC denied the Trinity had GPS right up till a cpl weeks before the ROM update that enabled it so. Maybe HP will recant and join the WM6 bandwagon when its widespread upgrade release takes place hopefully this month, or at the latest next month.
Need Help look for WM6 for HP Ipaq rw6828
I need help..i wanted to have wm6 for my ipaq6828..help please