It's hard to say goodbye to an old friend. Yet that's what many consumers are doing to the personal digital assistant (PDA). It's hard for me, particularly, as I've covered PDAs since the early 90s, before cell phones were common. I even ran a seminar at SM's Meeting World conference as recently as 2002 about PDA uses for planners.
I was excited at the PDA's birth, when now-forgotten products such as Apple's Newton and the HP95LX put powerful functionality in the pockets and purses of users. But the numbers today simply don't look good. Unlike most other electronic gadgets, where the growth curve is steep, sales of PDAs actually dropped last year. Only 10.4 million PDAs shipped in 2003, a 17.9 percent decline from the previous year's shipment of 12.6 million. In June, Sony announced it would suspend sales of its hitherto popular Clie PDA with the Palm operating system.
The culprit for the PDA's demise is the cell phone. Some 533 million cell phones were sold in 2003—a ratio of 50 cell phones sold for every PDA. Cell phone sales will grow to 595 million in 2004 and to 800 million by 2010, according to International Data Corp. A growing number are "smart phones" that let you take pictures, send e-mail, fire off instant messages, and listen to music. Most smart phones also have traditional PDA functions, such as electronic notepads, calendars, schedulers, and address and phone books.
"If I am going to get a woman's number, I'm not going to whip out my PDA. That's not cool," says Aaron Perry, a young media manager from Minnesota. "But if I take out my cell phone with a camera, I get her number and take her picture, which pops up whenever she calls." How can you compete with that?
But buried in the negative numbers is one positive trend: the growth in sales of business PDAs based on Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating system. These PDAs still have advantages over the all-powerful cell phone. And Dell's Axim X30 wireless handhelds offer both 802.11b connectivity, for instant access to wireless networks, and Bluetooth local capability, so you can share documents with fellow meeting attendees around the conference table, and "beam" documents to Bluetooth-equipped printers.
As phones add more features, they tend to become either larger or harder to use. The Axim has a 3.5 inch color display with three times as much screen area as my Audiovox 8900 flip phone, and comes with a cradle for transfer of data between it and a PC. But there's no simple solution for Outlook users to sync up to most smart phones, and entering data on smart phones is not yet an intuitive process.
As for processing power, storage, and software, the PDA wins hands down. The Axim comes in a 312MHz version ($249) and 624MHz ($349); both include 64 megabytes of SDRAM and 64 megabytes of Flash ROM for running applications and for storage, and support up to 512 megabyte SD flash cards for storing data, pictures, or Word or PowerPoint files. Similarly, HP's popular iPAQ pocket PC ($499) integrates wireless support and adds a clip-on or integrated backlit keyboard. Much software is available for PDAs at www.handango.com.
So while many consumers have abandoned the PDA for smart phones, on the business side, the PDA can quote Mark Twain: "Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."
SIDEBAR
Extra Bytes: Power in Your Bag
Whether you travel with a cell phone, laptop, PDA, or all three, carrying and unwrapping the different chargers can be a big hassle. Now you can pack all your business electronics into the Laptop TravelPower case, which lets you charge and power all your mobile devices at once from a single power source, like airplane power strips, auto cigarette lighters, or AC outlets. Starting at $99, they're available at www.apc.com.