Engadget has an article by Ross Rubin dissecting the "ailing PDA market". In some ways it's more of the same that we've seen before, but it's still worth reading. A worthwhile snip:
Quote:
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The PDA paradox is that, ignoring cell phones for a moment, consumers should be more willing to gravitate toward a multifunction portable device than a dedicated one due to the space constraints of mobility. But since the introduction of the original PDA, there’s been a mini-explosion of portable devices free from carrier oversight. But for a hard drive, PalmOne could have developed the iPod or Portable Media Center. Instead, we see companies such as Archos taking portable video players and co-opting PIM functionality. ... Perhaps, beyond the PIM features, PDAs have simply suffered from the jack-of-all-trades problem.
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I'm not sure how I feel about what he's saying. I don't think that PDAs are really "dying" so much as transitioning. With the flourishing of new portable tech it's inevitable that there will be a rise and fall of devices. I do think that we may be closing in on a saturation point with the
current crop of portables. I also think that the market forces are much too harsh for some very useful devices. (Not every portable device can be an ipod.) But where will we be in 2-3 years? 5-7 years?? Put a 20 gig hard drive in my Palm and make it open like a book and let me make phone calls on wifi and cell networks. I don't think that there will be a "jack-of-all-trades problem" then. In fact, in the end, once the tech matures, I hope that there will be a jack-of-all-trades solution!
I think that all the predictions of the "death of PDAs" are completely overblown. These devices are much to useful to disappear, even with the threats from media players and smartphones.