I think you're absolutely crazy with this comment and apologies to the Polar employees above, but I am in agreement with everyone that has already posted that Polar keeps missing the boat. The number of ways that I feel you've missed the boat are as follows:
1. Over time I have owned two Polar units - what I have heard about the Polar units and their "superior software" has always been more of a guess to me, because I've never been able to connect my damn watches to the computer - Sonic link was never a big winner for me, especially when I switched to a computer with no external speakers. I was unbelievably excited when I managed to pick up a new S725x off of this site with the infra red link so I wouldn't need sonic-link anymore, but that didn't work any better, the software support on the website was absolutely horrid and no matter how much time I spent working on it, it didn't get there. Wife bought me a Garmin 310xt for Christmas and I sold both my watches on this website to other STers to offset the costs.
2. Ant+ - I am so excited by the fact that there are potentially new powermeter companies coming out with products, such as Metrigear, that recognize that many of us already have the computers we want for our bike (my 310xt for me) and will simply provide the tool without the computer to lower our costs - GREAT. It is compatibility that we all want - I don't want a watch to have a watch and a bike computer, as it doesn't add value for me. Also, as someone pointed out, eventually this is all going to be integrated and it will need to be Ant+ so not sure why Polar would try to come out with a new "Gold Standard" when it's already out there and everyone is using it.
Sorry for the rant - as you can tell, I was actually quite a big fan of polar products with my first product being purely for running and second product being triathlon, but once I went with my new Garmin 310xt, which syncs up to my computer the minute I walk in the room, I can't think I'd ever go back.
Also, side note - your link to the gold standard brings me to an invalid server ;-) Hopefully that's not a sign of the standard.
In Reply To:
Everyone seems to be missing the point that Garmin are inferior products.
From my experience, they use what I call 'Duct-tape design methodology':
Take a bit of this, a bit of that and attempt to stick it all together. In essence a flawed bottom-up methodology.
Although I have never worked with either company, the finished product seems to me to show evidence that Polar actually have a top-down approach that includes feasibility and design phase in their development process. The finished product is cleaner.
As I said, compatibility only becomes an issue when their complete product portfolio is not up to scratch - in this case the power meter is an issue.
The analogy with VHS and Beta is verging on nonsense: We don't put different tapes/discs into the unit every day like a media player. We set it up and we're done.
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"Chrissie wins because she trains really f'ing hard and races really f'ing hard and was blessed with a huge f'ing motor" Jordan Rapp