Comments on: Palm Regains Lead and Shipments Up in W. Europe

Here is the press release:
http://biz.yahoo.com/djus/021021/1200000585_2.html

Unfortunately, there is not much info other than what I already covered.

There is a ton of info in Palms latest SEC Quarterly Report:
http://biz.yahoo.com/e/021011/palmd10-q.html

Yea, but then what happens when you have units that can be expanded to have wireless? Like the NX or Tungsten with Bluetooth? Do you say that a Smartphone must have voice? Does that make the Tungsten W a smartphone... even though you have to use a headset to do voice? The lines are indeed very blurred. It's great to watch convergence actually take place.

It's "Ocell" for short.

Confusing if you start to include everything that has some sort of software in it.

In case you have lived outside the solar system for the last few years, Nokia is a company that develops mobile phones and this specific Nokia is also not a pda, it is a phone!

The only exception might be the communicator which does not nearly sell as well as the 7650!

"I think the the Nokia 7650 has far more of a PDA than say the Zire."

In regards to bells and whistles, yes, but you won't see the 7650 in a blister pack for $89 either. If I had the Zire, it would still be easier for email and web browsing (yes, I did that on a IIIe which is the same minus two buttons and backlight). Entering text on the Nokia is downright painful, and I usually do the web browsing in text mode. To make things easier, I'll use the phone as a modem and connect with my Palm instead... it's faster and more satisfying. The phone PIM is also lacking on ease of use. Games? The kids can tolerate them ever since I stopped letting them play on my Palm, but they usually play them for a while then hand the phone back. I always had to ask for the Palm back.

Point I am making is that people can't simply say that the 7650 is not a PDA and therefore dismiss it because they like the idea of Palm "winning" in terms of market share.

The big problem is that with reports that include cellphones and PDAs in a single mix, you start to get skewed results. Of course a cellphone sold for $50 after activation, rebates, and a two year contract will have a greater market penetration than a PDA for $400.

A figure quoted at the BREW developers conference earlier this year said that on average, cellphone users upgrade their phones every 18 months, so manufacturers need to embed more compelling features to help drive this cycle. I do not know what the average upgrade period is for a PDA user (excluding Sony users - they seem to upgrade every two months when a new model comes along 8^), but I have a Palm VII from 1999 I use for development, and a Visor Deluxe from 1998 that is still my "daily driver".

So to drive the markets cellphone companies are delivering more PDA style functionality in even basic models - PIM, Address Books. From the other direction, to drive the PDA market, PDA makers are adding more and more wireless capability.

The end result is that we are getting a convergence of devices from different directions, and ending up with data centric and phone centric smartphones. These should be pulled into a seperate category for tracking purposes ... it would be far more interesting to see an overall comparison of declinig PDA and cellphone sales, with a corresponding rise in smartphones sales.

~ "Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed." - DV ~

I don't know, Zuber, sometimes it just seemed like people were reusing the same old arguments that had no connection to reality in the first place.

I think the signal-to-noise ratio has cleaned up immensely.

Jon Acheson

"All opinions posted are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled."