I've often wondered about what will happen to the PDA market when desktop functionality of today is able to fit in your pocket. It's not just a pie in the sky question anymore -- there are already pocket-sized Windows PCs like the OQO, and tiny laptops like the new Toshiba model just announced with a screen of about 7", and even a PDA that runs Linux.
I don't think we'll see too much of a disruptive technology in this area for the next few years, though. It's not technology that's ready for prime time with the average consumer because of the high prices, feature compromises, battery life issues, limited disk space, bad PIM applications, long boot times, etc. And it's possible that tiny computing might not ever be as cheap and powerful as a desktop equivalent.
But as we've heard from many visionaries, there's also the likelihood that all the storage and computing power won't have to reside at your computer anyway, whether it's a handheld or a desktop. Fast (I mean really fast, not just the cable internet speeds of today) wireless access to servers or desktop machines, or even computing farms may mean that you really only need to have a computer that can be an access point and and input/output device. You may do just about the same computing remotely from a PDA as a desktop, but with different I/O capabilities.
Most people dismiss this because of the early days of thin client computing. We were promised that you could run apps on servers with minimal client maintenance, and minimal client specs. It was too good to be true. Bandwidth was the primary culprit, but also there were problems with the limited technologies available for web computing application interfaces. All that is going to change, and probably sooner not later. That means your PDA might look just as powerful as your desktop if they are both running applications hosted elsewhere. And it means that you don't even have to sync your data anymore... the data is accessible no matter what computer you use.
Others would say that it's important to have local control of your data. They don't want it passing over the airwaves, or to servers that they don't own or control. They would much rather sync the data than remotely access it.
As you can see, there's a lot of "what-ifs" that have yet to be worked out. And to our dismay, I propose that the way we compute in the future may have more to do with technology alliances and politics than technological progress. But that's a whole other topic.
For now, vote in the poll, and let us know how you see the future for handheld computing. Or, more precisely, let us know how you
want it to look!