Pocket PC, Convergence and Books

on 01.09.05, 10:29am in Uncategorized • comments (3)

[Frank McPherson] Russell Beattie writes about Microsoft’s consumer electronics strategy. This is relative to some email correspondence I have had with the publisher of my book regarding the future of Pocket PCs. I find it ironic that some people think that Pocket PC’s, and all PDAs are old news because everyone is now in to these new convergent devices like Treos. Ironic because from the beginning Pocket PCs have always been about more than just being a PDA.

I’m in a similar boat with regards to Pocket PC Network Programming. While the book has gotten great reviews and has maintained a decent Amazon rank, books sales have been less than stellar (and way below what I had expected). While my publisher says that the "Pocket PC is old news", "networking books aren’t selling" and "book sales in general are in a slump", I totally agree with what Frank is talking about: These devices have always been about convergence.

With regards to my book, it would seem to me that now would be the perfect time for it - 802.11 is becoming common place, GRPS is pretty much everywhere and both the Pocket PC and Smartphone market share is growing.

Part of me wonders if I should push to do a second edition and change the focus to "Windows Mobile", covering both Pocket PC and Smartphone. The other part wonders if/when Addison decides to no longer keep it in print (and the rights come back to me), if I should release it for free on a wiki or a PDF, or self-publish it.

Any one have any thoughts?

3 Comments

    Paul (January 9, 2005 @ 12:44 pm)

    I’ve been doing a lot of tinkering with PocketPC programming (also a SmartPhone: Mot MPX200). One thing I liked about the MSPress books was the availability of the electronic version of the book. That way I can read them on my mobile device, and even better, do text searches.

    I also bought your book and have been going through it slowly, I really enjoy it so far. If you do release a “free” version, it would be great if you did it in a format that was mobile friendly, such as CHM.

    Steve (January 9, 2005 @ 1:35 pm)

    I agree - I think the CHM format is really good, however, I’ve noticed in the more recent MS Press books, this is no longer the practice (they dont ship an electronic version).

    Frank McPherson (January 10, 2005 @ 12:12 pm)

    One of the things that many people don’t realize is that authors have very little say in what format books are published. Osborne does sell ebook versions of my book, but they are only in encrypted Adobe format and not MS Reader, meaning they can’t be read on Pocket PCs.

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