(The PDA Otherwise Known As An XDA)

 

This has to be an extraordinarily inept piece of non-marketing by Vodafone NZ.

 

So far the only sign I've seen that this device is present in NZ is a list item and associated link on their PDAs page. No sign of any promotion or even mention anywhere else.

 

To add insult to injury, the page that contains the details for the Qtek 1010 has an incorrect "TITLE" tag in the HTML, which actually says "Vodafone - Mobiles - Compaq IPAQ H3870 - Main Features". So that is what appears in bookmark entries, and that is what search engines will list (the page in question even has the same tag in a comment accompanied by "These are put here so that search engine can pick them up"...which obviously wasn't read by the person who cloned this page from an iPAQ version. I emailed Vodafone to politely point this out (carefully omitting any condescending nerdy sarcasm), but I just got the standard "someone will be in touch within 2 days" or whatever, and then they obviously ignored it. Quite possibly the person who handles email from the web site doesn't understand what HTML is. Next to this it is a minor point that the custom Vodafone Today screen is the only one I've ever seen that manages to make one of these devices look ugly.

 

But to return (at length, and after an extended grizzle) to my main point, does anybody else here in New Zealand know whether Vodafone is really serious about selling these things and what the story might be with the appalling promotion to date?

 

It's all a bit of a shame, because as for someone who's leapt into Compact Framework development (it fits nicely since I work with .NET fulltime at work), I see the PPC Phone Edition devices as an ideal platform for the delivery of web services to mobile devices...but there won't be any market if nobody knows they exist.