Dave Lippincott wrote:
>
> >That's kind of been the case with a lot of these Springboard vendors. Does
> >anybody know what's up with the long lead times for these guys to get stuff
> >to market. (Making the press release statements doesn't take so long to
> >announce that Springboards are "in development")
I'll give you a summation from the front Dave.
Long and short, it is my finding that the majority of guys doing these initial
Springboard modules have lots of software
development background but very little in hardware design and manufacturing
management. As I'm sure you know, doing hardware
release is a lot more involved than just pushing your final executable to an ftp
server. Also, there is a shortage of hardware
engineers to do the design and layout that these start-ups can afford by either cash
or equity.
It is my opinion that the those more experienced in this market are waiting to see if
this new bus is worth their time.
Historically, there is a year lead time from bus introduction to getting a volume of
products that work with that bus. Handspring
and the developers are caught in the chasm of manufacturing and waiting for parts.
Also, the worldwide Flash memory shortage has
really thrown a monkey wrench in the whole process with all thoe runs being allocated
for more established consumer lines.
My guess is that it will start to turn the first anniversary of the Visor release this
September. Everyone will be back from
vacation -- both developers and customers --, the end of year budgets well be getting
attention and everyone will have a really
nice Christmas party.
Steve
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