This is it: KISS. You know, "Keep it simple stupid!" This is exactly what Palm Computing (the USRobotics subsidiary) did with the Pilot and they managed to take 51% of the US market in the first year with their first product release. Woe begone were its rivals such as Psion and Apple Newton. The Pilot keeps things simple, it doesn't try to be too clever. It has a simple PC connectivity system making adding new programs and backup a doddle. It has a simple OS making third party programming a dream which only helped its growth further. It has a set of simple applications which are stupidly easy to use, fast and basic enough for a kid to understand and yet featured enough to be useful. But they didn't have enough features for you to get lost in or for it to make a sluggish program. Perfect.

Compare to feature packed WindowsCE machines which try to do everything, which are sluggish, which gobble batteries because of their huge screens (note that the Pilot fits in a shirt pocket) and note their lack of third party applications (partly due to their only recent availability I'll admit) as a result of complicated APIs to master.

QED and the end of my WindowsCE rants, I promise.

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by Jason P. Kitcat [e-mail him]