Axim PDA Line Discontinued by Dell

Sharp and Casio still put out organizers, don't they? (Well, at least one of them does...)

Dell discontinuing the Axim should not have surprised anyone. Axim shipments peaked in 1Q05 at about 6% market share and have steadily declined since then. While many people reading this forum bought Axims with their own funds, it is well known that Dell mostly used the Axim as a sweetener to help clinch large deals for PCs and servers with its enterprise customers. I know of a few companies where Dell offered the IT manager a hundred Axims to hand out in return for a signature on a contract that was being negotiated. With the perceived value of PDAs in decline, the Axim is no longer seen as much of a sweetener as it was a few years ago.

With the decline in Dell's fortunes over the last 2 years and HP recapturing the lead in the PC market, Dell is rationalizing some of its businesses that no longer contribute meaningfully to the bottom line.

The recent hire of Ron Garriques from Motorola makes it is a pretty safe bet that Dell will be entering the smartphone business within the next year.

Enjoy your Treo, but I still want a PDA.

To go with my iPhone (maybe on the iPhone now...).

I still maintain there's a market for the "traditional" PDA in at least two segments:

1. The sub-$150 retail market.

No, budget phones have killed off this sector for PDAs too. Case in hand, the Sony Ericsson K310i. This is a budget dumbphone in the UK which you can get for £35-45 (about US$70-90) without any contract. It's a budget mobile and yet it offers:

- PIM (Calandar, tasks, notes and contacts)which can be synced with PC via USB
- same resolution VGA camera as the Treo 680
- media player (seems almost pointless with its meagre unexpandable 16MB memory)
- email
- Web browser

These are the phones most likely to be owned by the soccer mums and their kids.
It's as much the capabilities and market success of these budget phones which have killed the PDA stone cold dead. 1 billion mobiles sold globally last year, just how many PDAs in comparison?

Yes, there's a market for the PDA in enterprise but not for Palm; it's a much smaller market already dominated by the likes of Symbol et al. If Palm couldn't cut it in the wider consumer market they have no chance at all in the tighter enterprise market.

I can assure that in the good ol' US of A, there's simply NO WAY you can purchase such a phone without a contract. In fact, it's easily $150-$200 to purchase the lowest-end dumbphones (no PC sync, VGA camera, no Bluetooth etc, no memory card slot) at "full" retail prices.

While the US might lead in affordble, unlimited data packages, our wireless phone market is still quite a bit behind that of Europe & Asia....especially in the area of affordable yet slim & sleek handsets. In fact, I think I recently saw the original GSM RAZR (the '04 launch model) still selling for $250ish full retail here. The V3x or xx was at least $100 more than that.

So at least in the US, I think you'll still see another year or so of reasonable PDA sales at retail (assuming Palm doesn't pull the plug or anything). And keep in mind that on top of the $70-$90 price of that SE dumbphone you mention you have to factor in monthly voice charges plus whatever SMS/data packages you want with it.

With something like a Palm Z22 or E2, you pay your $100 or $150 and that's IT.

Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P

Hey don't get all irritable and excited by the idea of a phone without contract, maybe it's time you take a break and have a European vacation. Once here you'll find that it's easy to get a "pay as you go" phone or even just a pay as you go SIM card. You then buy vouchers for airtime as and when you need it. It's useful for those with poor credit rating, kids, foreigners, tourists or those who otherwise can't get a phone contract.

Incidentally the Treo 680 on sale in the UK are all sold at full price without contract, which is useful as none of the UK carriers offer the Treo 680. You can then get a SIM card only contract from your favourite carrier.

I thought the US and Canada offer pay as you go phones too?

From your comments it seems there's plenty of opportunity for developing the budget cellular market in North America! I also understand Palm's rationale for spending much less time over PDAs, what's the point of making PDAs when >95% of the world wants a mobile? Mobiles are being used in areas of the world where people have never seen a desktop or laptop, much less a PDA.

With CDMA phones it's even trickier (no SIM). The ESNs of most pre-paid phones are flagged and you cannot activate them on a normal line of service. There are some exceptions, like with the <$100 pre-paid RAZRs Wal-Mart was selling last year but for the most part the stores try to harass you into opening a new line before they will even let you pay for the phone.

I remember once trying to buy a VisorPhone Sprinbboard module that was marked waaaay down on clearnace (like $50-no mention of activation or contract required) as I figured it + my Prism + a prepaid SIM card would make for a good combo for an upcoming European trip. But the cashier wouldn't let me buy the Visorphone module without signing up for a 2-year AT&T contract! I said "he11 with this" and left it sitting there.

Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P

You Europeans should be thoroughly condemned! You do too many *sensible* things. Learn from America -- where it's as the above poster said. I have a Tracfone (prepaid phone). If I dropped it and needed to get another, I couldn't just put the SIM card from the old one -- with my prepaid $$$ remaining -- into the new one. Noooo. I've got to buy *new* prepaid units. See, that's the American Way!

Although it didn't *used* to be...

The Axim was still a better device than the Tx, despite being discontinued. Such is life. What more is there to say about it?

Surur

They said I only argued for the sake of arguing, but after an hour I convinced them they were wrong...
Hey!! I made associate writer at PDA247. Come see my nattering over there!!
www.clieuk.co.uk/wm.shtml

Its still my main driver, and I recently added the leaked WM6 ROM, which added some niceties. However its getting a bit long in the tooth, and I am waiting for a valid upgrade. I want a VGA screen, keyboard, GPS and 3G at a minimum. There are many devices that will get me 3 out of 4 (VGA,3G, GPS and no keyboard, or VGA, GPS, keyboard and no 3G) but no such device has shown up yet, but I remain hopeful for the near future.

Anyway, you were probably not expecting such a long answer. Suffice to say, like most people I am waiting for the next big thing, but I am much more likely to get it on WM than PalmOS.

Surur

They said I only argued for the sake of arguing, but after an hour I convinced them they were wrong...
Hey!! I made associate writer at PDA247. Come see my nattering over there!!
www.clieuk.co.uk/wm.shtml

Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P