Pocket PC Platform Announced

Microsoft announced that a new “Pocket PC” platform will succeed the Palm-size PC platform as Microsoft’s standard bearer for Windows CE on keyboardless, handheld devices. The announcement, made at the 2000 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), is both a rebranding move—Microsoft’s “Palm-size PC” brand was too similar to Palm’s far more successful Palm PC, which outsells Windows CE devices six to one—and a technology move, rolling out the next version of Windows CE for handheld devices.

Details about the Pocket PC are sparse, but several manufacturers, including Casio, Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, and Siemens—all of whom build or have announced Palm-size devices—have announced they will build devices based on the Pocket PC platform.

Rebranding: Pulling Away from Palm

The rebranding component in this strategy is the more significant move. When Pocket PCs arrive in mid-2000, they should end the confusion between Microsoft’s Palm-sized PC platform and Palm Computing’s Palm. When it announced the Palm-size PC, Microsoft may have imagined that it could win by “embracing and extending” the palm metaphor, but the strategy seemed only to help build the Palm brand and extend Palm’s massive and growing lead—now at roughly 80% market share compared with Windows CE’s 13%.