Pocket plans
So Microsoft and its friends are having another shot at the handheld market (The Battle For Your Pocket, October 4). Every time we are told that this is the one we will need; the one that will do the job.

This time it is going to have skins. What a neat idea. They are a complete waste of (portable, low-power, lightweight: remember?) resources, drawing needlessly complex graphics, and render over-the-phone support difficult if not impossible. This time it is going to have Flash memory. What a neat idea.

The Palm III, which I bought in April 1998, had that, and an upgradeable OS, along with plenty of space for lightweight applications and copies of critical data.

PalmOS machines don't come with Word and Excel viewers - big deal. I can get several, in seconds, from somewhere like PalmGear, and install them using a tried and tested installation scheme that's as easy to undertake as any installation I ever saw on any Windows PC - assuming I choose to pay for them.

If they were installed as standard, I wouldn't have that choice. Other than that, I can use an ordinary (and free!) document viewer on a Palm handheld and convert the Word/Excel document, automatically. Unbundling applications means the buyer gets to choose what they spend their money on: that's a good thing, not a bad thing.

The telling statistic is that 75-80% of Palm sales come "from the enterprise" but only about 5-10% from IT departments. Evidently IT departments don't buy handhelds for staff very much, but when buyers are given a free and realistic choice they do not choose Windows. The real lesson is there. The Samsung Yopy will be out soon: can PalmOS, let alone the latest Microsoft offering, compete with a handheld that runs Linux? That, I suspect, is the question that matters.
Sam Nelson
sam.nelson@cs.stir.ac.uk

Microsoft may be working hard to make PocketPC more popular than Palm, but it has done existing Windows CE users no favours with the redesign of Hotmail. The new graphic-heavy pages take so long to load that I have given up on Hotmail as a usable email address. I suspect that I am not alone.

I emailed Microsoft to ask if there was a new CE-friendly version somewhere. I am still waiting for an acknowledgment of the real problem.

CE has always been under-rated by "proper" computer users, but many of us only really need pocket versions of programs while travelling. The lighter weight and longer battery life of handhelds are superb. My NEC MobilePro has been all over Eastern Europe, and has never lost a Word document or failed to collect an email. Consequently I have never missed a deadline; until the Hotmail redesign, that is.
Leslie Mapp
leslie.mapp@mailbox.ulcc.ac.uk

Love for Linux
Adam Williamson (Feedback, October 4) is himself guilty of missing points. Linux is not big, but it is clever. It is not as simple for the average computer user to learn as Windows, but this obstacle is being addressed by developers as they labour to create an easy-to-use interface.

For now, no one expects casual computer users to migrate from Microsoft to Linux, but when the platform is finally made less daunting, they should be aware of the choices open to them. Whether or not Windows users like it, Linux is more reliable, more secure, less prone to crashes and lock-ups. It is smaller and faster and will out-perform Windows even on older hardware that would make the Microsoft product shake its head in despair. Linux is not owned or controlled by a single organisation, and new releases are driven by real advances and improvements in the code, not by market forces, which can result in customers being sold a product held together by patches, string and chewing gum.

What is more, Linux is the product of a co-operative community. Its future is not at risk from the legal consequences of monopolist disregard for the welfare of the wider software industry, unlike some operating systems. It is free, it is cool and, when you finally tire of Microsoft's arrogance and restrictive business and licensing practices, Linux wants to be your friend.
Rick Cadger
rick.cadger@mdrive.co.uk

The skilled set
Hurrah for Nico Macdonald and Andrew Fisher (Feedback, October 4)! Their comments on the "completely skilled web professionals" who can conceive, design, write and market websites should be force fed to all the misguided career promoters who keep sending young people to their doom in an already divided market.

I write, and don't design. Some of my colleagues design and can't write. Others have neither of those professional skills, but they can market and promote concepts and products. What we share is a mutual respect for each other's abilities. Isn't it time the blurring of media skills ended, so that the UK can compete in a world where specialist knowledge is valued.
Catharine Hodges
mulberrymedia@btinternet.com

Now that the days of dot.com cash burn are over, those companies which are going for the slow growth approach, like ourselves at the London House, have to ration our spending.

In an ideal world we would buy in specialists; in practice, we have to exploit the best skills we have in each area, and if one person can demonstrate competence in several, then it gives us valuable flexibility. Perfection in every area would come at an impossible price.
Simon Tyrrell-Lewis
stlewis@tlassociates.demon.co.uk