Paul Thurott: “…on the heels of one of the worst quarters in PDA history” he asks, “With the popularity of multi-function cell phones and smartphones recently, and the rise of Tablet PCs on the high-end, do traditional PDAs still offer unique value?”
This may be a question that never dies.
Actually, I’ve been thinking about dusting off my PDA again. Why? The new OneNote Preview is able to upload notes from a PocketPC to a Tablet. And I miss instant on. Even with a fairly fast Toshiba M200 that I’m using now–restore from hibernate just doesn’t do it for me. I miss being able to push a button and start entering information right away, such as a contact someone is giving me on a plane.
The one reason I’ve just been thinking about dusting off my PDA versus actually using it is because I know from past experience that I don’t want to lug another device around. What I need is probably a SmartPhone or similar device. Since I carry a phone with me all the time anyway, this makes sense.
I also hope to see PDA features not only migrate down to cell phones like this but also up to the Tablet.
Paul says something similar:
“Take a step up from PDAs, and the Tablet PC market is poised to explode. Tablet PCs got off to a slow start in 2002, but recent changes to the underlying platform–thanks to Intel’s Centrino chipsets–have dramatically enhanced the devices’ battery life and processing power, and a free new OS release, due in late June, will improve its handwriting integration. This is a market Microsoft will no doubt dominate, but then it’s also a traditional PC market with obvious inroads for the software maker. Indeed, if the Tablet PC is successful, its functionality will simply become the baseline for all mobile PCs.”
and finally
“…it is increasingly obvious that the PDA market is on the wane as consumers and knowledge workers move to more sophisticated and multipurpose devices like smartphones and Tablet PCs.”
My guess is PDAs will continue to have a niche. It doesn’t look like there’s going to be a Tablet PC the size of a PDA anytime soon and PDA/SmartPhones combos can be overkill for some uses, so I imagine there will continue to be a market for PDAs for the next half dozen years or so.
PDA aside, what I wonder about are the markets for MP3 players, iPods, and SPOT watches. Doesn’t it seem like there will be a continuing growth of smaller and cheaper specialized products at the same time that all-in-one products push from above? I expect to see more products in the future, not just a bifurcation of the market into SmartPhones and Tablet-enabled notebooks. In this broader perspective, it seems that PDAs are being challenged from even more directions.
I’ve been using a Tablet PC in concert with a SmartPhone, and couldn’t be happier with the combination. I got rid of my PocketPC (gave it to my wife, actually) for the same reason: I wanted to carry fewer devices with me.
I use the SmartPhone primarily as a read-only view into my calendar/contacts when I want instant-on or don’t have my tablet handy. Carrying a single device is well worth the functional compromise embodied by the SmartPhone.