Sharp pulls the Zaurus

[clivel]

From inFoSync

Facing stuff competition and low sales, a Sharp representative has informed infoSync World that the company has decided to fully withdraw its Zaurus SL line of Linux-based handhelds from the US market and focus on its home market in Japan. The company will be selling through remaining SL-6000 handhelds already produced and will continue to offer support and service for existing products, but will not be producing or selling additional units or models in the United States. The Zaurus line will continue to be sold in Japan, where different models have been available and have sold much better than in other markets.

It seems like the end of the line for official Zaurus imports.
I did however, find the following quote fairly amusing, "and will continue to offer support and service for existing products", it is not like they ever provided support and service in the first place.
Regards,
Clive

[fierywater]

Well, it gave me a good deal on an SL-6000L. And, like you said, they never gave any support anyways. As long as they continue to release them in Japan, it doesn't really matter, since half the people here imported them from there anyways.

[Guest_DaWorm]

its a non-issue really for zaurus users since the sl 5500. Sharp didn't exactly give the best of support anyway. the community was the one whoe drove the zaurus in the us.

[rager]

Like DaWorm says, they didn't provide much of anything on their US website.

I'm just getting interested in either the 6000 or an 860 and this place is da place!

[Cresho]

im planning of purchasing 2 sl5500 and a couple of rechargable batters and pins.  also a few c860

[jettie1767]

I never had the need to go to the Sharp support site for information regarding my Zaurus.  This user group together with killefiz.de/zaurus have been my great resource for enjoying my C860!

[Guest_jetstream]

This happened to me before.  Years ago I bought a Sharp electronic typwriter. It was a grerat device saving up to three pages in memory, suppose to be expandable memory module and a dictionary module available that never happened.  Calls to support were a waste of time. Still when I looked at their product line I had to admit their slogan was true - From sharp minds come Sharp products.
     I'll never understand why they fail in the US market.  This web site proves support is not the issue. Perhaps the sharpness intimidates the wrong people?
                                                                                     jetstream

[nathanwms]

This happened to me before.  Years ago I bought a Sharp electronic typwriter. It was a grerat device saving up to three pages in memory, suppose to be expandable memory module and a dictionary module available that never happened.  Calls to support were a waste of time. Still when I looked at their product line I had to admit their slogan was true - From sharp minds come Sharp products.
     I'll never understand why they fail in the US market.  This web site proves support is not the issue. Perhaps the sharpness intimidates the wrong people?
                                                                                     jetstream

Jetstream,

I'm with you in that I don't understand why the US and European markets have proven unfruitful for Sharp.  Though not an expert on the Japanese consumer, my observation has been that they tend to upgrade devices frequently.  Devices that have short-comings or poor service can be more easily tolerated because most will upgrade rather than wait for a fix.  Thus, maybe it is the expectation of the US and European consumer that a product should be well supported even if superceded that is a stumbling block to Sharp.  Some companies are better off manufacturing the product and leaving the marketing and service to others.  How well would the Zaurus do if they stuck with making the hardware and allowed it to be rebranded by others?

[ccrandal69]

I think the Zaurus doesn't and generally wouldn't do well in the US because the stock software (like the PIMs) just don't work real well.  Plus, so many people are using cell phones for a PIM device, that they usually don't even need a Palm-type PDA.

I like the idea of Sharp making the hardware and then having someone else brand it and I think someone else should be making the software to run on it.  I work with a lot of people, who like myself, are big Apple people.  When they saw my C760, they said "Wow! It looks like a tiny iBook."  I'd love to see Apple partner with Sharp the way the did with the PortaPlayer people for the iPod and come out with a mini-iBook like PDA.  Perhaps they could spruce up the look of the Zaurus to be more like the iBook (a glowing Apple on the top and pulsating latch light would be cool), port Darwin + Aqua-lite interface + iCal/AddressBook + iTunes + Quicktime.

Alas, I think it's all a pipe-dream, but it would be cool.

[tg]

Zaurus is a niche device but it's nothing wrong with that. If sharp or someone else would take c860 type of type of device and (instead of focusing on only state of the art japanese dictionaries) add the following to it:

1. Built in wifi
2. Buillt in bluetooth
3. Built in phone/GPRS/GPS
4. More RAM (ie. 256 M)
5. Hard drive (at least 20G)
6. PIM that syncs with phones,windows,macs,linux
7. GPS application with maps etc
8. Music and video player applications
9. Remote control for music and video players which doubles as external battery (ie. take current remote controll and extend it to also provide power to z
10. Battery to cover typical 8 hour workday

I would like to meet a unix/linux//mac geek who could resist this type of device.
Scary thing is that sharp almost already has all the pieces to do this - all they need
is to get in touch with zautrix to work out inclusion of KOPI/KAPI etc and find some map provider for GPS application. I would easily pay $1500 (and up to $2000) for this type of device and I know a lot of other people who would as well. We would then finally be able to ditch wireless phones, misc portable music players, gps devices (some of us even laptops) once and for all. Sharp and other companies underestimate the buying power and commitment of unix/linux community (probably due to GNU image which unfortunatelly is frequently misinterpreted as I believe most of us don't support linux and open software because it is free but because it 's higher quality and it gives freedom to see the sources. But yes, even though it is frustrating that all these pieces are right there for someone to put together it is probably a pipe dream.

[ccrandal69]

No matter how good a PDA is, I don't think I'll ever ditch my phone or iPod totally... but it would be nice if I didn't need to drag 3 devices with me to work all the time.

While screen realestate would be a problem, I'd like to see something like the new Nokia communicators running Linux.  Then I really could leave the PDA and iPod at home and just have the one phone.

I don't know if I'd want to pay $1500 or more for a PDA even it had all the stuff in it that you list.  I think $700-$800 would be my breaking point.

One thing I'd add to your list would be builtin bluetooth WITH THE FULL BLUETOOTH STACK.  This is one thing I hate about my Z.  I can only do dial-out networking right now.  I've never been able to do OBEX file transfers, use my bluetooth headset or my keyboard/mouse, and a few other things that I know would be possible with the Z.

Perhaps one day I'll get motivated enough to see if I can work on apps and drivers that'll fill in some of the gaps I see with the software I currently have.

[Lumune]

I think the jap companies are up to sth.
not only sharp, others also start not to export electric devices to other countries...

[amrein]

Well, when I read the list in previous tg post, I can easily find why US and European PDA market can afraid many big companies.

Just add this item to the tg list:
_ "use a x86 compatible processor"

You should find now that what tg is expecting from Sharp is to have the same specification as the best available laptops but still with Zaurus small size and with 2 times more battery life than typical laptop.

Well... Father Christmas.

To answer your question tg: no I won't be able to resist. This is exactly what I dream of since the OQO annoncement. But a lot of time will go by before seeing this. At least 6 months.

[tg]

Well, when I read the list in previous tg post, I can easily find why US and European PDA market can afraid many big companies.

Just add this item to the tg list:
_ "use a x86 compatible processor"

You should find now that what tg is expecting from Sharp is to have the same specification as the best available laptops but still with Zaurus small size and with 2 times more battery life than typical laptop.

Well... Father Christmas.

To answer your question tg: no I won't be able to resist. This is exactly what I dream of since the OQO annoncement. But a lot of time will go by before seeing this. At least 6 months.

I sure hope you are right - but 6 months sounds way to optimistic to me. The problem with x86 processor will be heat (at least I think I remember a mini initial review of OQO where they complained about this - can't remember the site though - probably cnet/zdnet).

[amrein]

Perhaps http://www.handtops.com