Iphone is a convergence device, but it merges products that Apple produces: ie. Music, Video and now phone. It hardly touches upon the multiple uses that a PC has. With an UMPC despite the fact that the processors aren’t particularly powerful, many poeple could comfortably perform most office tasks. I fail to see how any office task could be performed comfortably on the iPhone.

When I read the original article I felt like he wasn’t making a valid argument. The iPhone may be said to run OS X, but something tells me this version of OS X is the mobile version, similar to windows mobile. That would explain in part why Apple only allows 1st party and select developers to create apps for the iPhone, because the apps need to be less hardware intensive, so the iPhone can still handle it. I don’t want to get into too much detail, but it’s like comparing apples to oranges.

Anon.
Whatever Origami was or wasn’t, there’s still no comparable metrics between the two projects. That is my point.

As for Origami’s success, there’s no way we can quantify the success or failure of Origami. As far as I know, Origami was a project that researched and produced an ultra mobile spec that was given out to some partners. MS kicked off a teaser campaign which went unexpectedly viral through the ‘kitchen’ video. There was a CeBit launch, some marketing and after that point, it was pretty much up to the OEMs, vars and resellers. Unfortunately, MS did the opposite of managing expectation by talking about $500 UMPCs. That was a little bit silly and now results in the general feeling that the whole aim of the project was a series of $500 UMPCs. And thus we have – disappointment.

I actually think that it’s been a good idea that prices have stayed high:
http://www.carrypad.com/journal/2006/08/incubating-umpcs-keep-price-high.html

From the consumer point of view I can see the disappointment but that original Origami specification is now starting to bear fruit. One year later we see 35 UMPC-like devices and this year alone we’ve already seen over 10 more with more and more on the horizon. If MS had done nothing, would the ultra-mobile market be as vibrant as it is today?

Regards
Steve.

Origami was obviously a disaster. You never see the devices that were released within six months of the Origami “viral” campaign in the real world. There was successful SIMILAR stuff (Sony UX) but it was already happening without Origami.

MS’s advantage is that they can afford disaster after disaster and still win due to the Windows monopoly—when a popular solution finally does appear, it will certainly carry a Windows tax.