CANOE -- CNEWS - Tech News: Microsoft venture adds to Blackberry woes

I am fortunate to own an HP iPaq 5450 PDA; this is the one with the biometric sensor. It is a nifty little tool/toy that allows me to jot down electronic notes, listen to MP3s on the bus (whenever that centennial occurrence happens), watch compressed videos, store addresses and maps, play games and surf at the Air Canada Centre while watching Raptor games (too busy yelling during Leaf games).

Now, while anyone that knwos me knows I cannot simply buy a piece of technology and leave it the hell alone, they will tell you that I strive for stability in its use. And therein lies the problem with this announcement. Microsoft, as stable as its products are now compared to the past, simply does not understand the low tolerance of favour for various devices.

The fit hit the shan when their Xbox and Xbox 360 gamin machines exhibited problems; when hae you heard the same of Sony or Nintendo or Sega machines having the same issues? What about their failed intelligent watch service? Or their super easy to use (and buggy) home wireless router division? And the list goes on and on.

Simply put, when it comes to consumer hardware, there are few areas where people will put up with the crap that we do in the computer industry. What if you had to exit your car and then get back in to get it going each time it stopped? What would you do if you put bread to toast and never saw the toast again no matter how much bread you put in? What if you were told that you had to get a new wife because the existing one could not get the new features you wanted added to it? What if the DVD/HD recorder (PVR) blue screened in the middle of the game and when you rebooted it, it lost all previous game information?

So, you see, when I hear that Gates, Ballmer and company want to take over the wireless communication world, I greet the news as bittersweet. I love having the Blackberry device regardless of the temptaion at times to make it one with the nearest wall when it is just going off from incessantly stupid email chains. However, it is a limited function device and i always wanted to have a single PDA/smartphone type unit that can do it all so only one item needed to be carried on my hip. The promise of this one unit, with all the goodness of the many units it replaces, makes the Microsoft announcement a good thing.

Now, if they can simply make it work with the ease, realiability and stability of the common cell phone or the ubiquitous Crackberry, they really could take over.

I'm not holding my breath.

Ciao.

CANOE -- CNEWS - Tech News: Microsoft venture adds to Blackberry woes