Comments on: IDC: Third Straight Year of Handheld Decline

-Ryan

IDC not only excludes the Treo, which I can understand because it is a smartphone, but IDC also fails to include wireless PDAs such as the iPAQ 6315 and the RIM BlackBerries.

By excluding any device that offers WAN or WLAN connectivity, within a couple of years IDC will have defined PDAs out of existence.

I think car sales reports should exclude cars that come with high end stereo systems, since those are really just stereos, not cars.

Then reacquaint yourself with it at www.palmone.com
PalmOne themselves put it in the smartphone section of their site, differentiating it from their handhelds.

In its list of features, "phone" is listed first in "Phone, Web, Email and organizer all in one."

And later on the Treo 600 page:
"Everything a smartphone should be. It's still a smartphone. Only it's smarter. With a built-in camera and one-handed navigation, the Treo 600 makes it easy to get more done. The real beauty? It's the size of a mobile phone. Really."

In the numbers gamer here,
PDA + Phone = PDA (and maybe a smart licensee)
Phone + PDA = smartphone

But they were all PDAs and no marketing report will convince me otherwise. Enough with this war of semantics. Standalone PDAs may go away someday but only because they've evolved into Smartphones. Smartphones *are* PDAs.

A smartphone is a PDA in phone's clothing. Smartphones are voice-centric -- the phone function takes precedence in the design.

A wireless PDA may include a cellular radio, but it is a data-centric device in which the phone capability is a secondary function.

For example, most BlackBerry users still use a cellphone, but most Treo users use it as their primary mobile phone.

It would be equally stupid to not count it in lists of phones sold, because you were claiming it's really a PDA. It should be on BOTH lists.

But I recall it being the same way with PCs twenty years ago. People just didn't "get" what they could do for you, and it took an overwhelming pressense in everyday life for it to just become normal to people. Same thing will happen with PDAs (or "Smartphones" or whatever they may call them...even if they are PDAs).

There goes that hypothesis..."<<

People are spending SOME money in SOME segments, yes. But it's not yet enought to make businesses feel comfortable about increased spending or investment, including on things like PDA's. If they it were, then we'd all have our dream jobs by now, wouldn't we? =P

Seriously, if Palm et all could make these things more attractive than laptops to consumers, I wager they would see a lot more consumer sales in the future. But even the capabilities PDA's do have aren't promoted enough by any of the PDA makers, so the average Joe still looks at it as an expensive calander/planner. PDA's as a whole need and deserve better mindshare.

_________________
Sean

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.

//QUOTE
I don't understand why so many people don't use/"get" what PDAs are about. I've been asked by different people why I don't just use pen and paper. My response is...should I go back to using pen and paper instead of a computer? I mean it's like they just don't get it. You've got a portable PC right in your hand, access to almost anything you need right there.
//END

First off, I'm sure some of them do get it. They just feel they don't need it. I certainly get what camera phones and ipods are about, but I'm just not sold despite them being great devices. A cam phones jacks up the price of the phone, requires a 2 year contract in many cases, and adds unneccessary extra monthly charges. For the price of an ipod, i'd rather get a better PDA. I don't need THAT much music. I listen to it in small chunks at at time.

Otherwise, I don't buy it. It's certainly NOT TRUE with desktops and laptops. The vast majority of ppl who use those haven't given up on paper, and neither do PDA users. PDA users simply put more stuff into electronic format to take advantages of its features and convenience.

Dell picked up their far-eastern design firm and viola market share is increasing.

The much maligned PalmOne is amazingly still hanging strong. Funny how they have a knack at survival.

Pat Horne; www.churchoflivingfaith.com

Moreover I'd be fine with that. If PalmOne wants to hang their future on Treos (which the absence of PDA's their installed user base are asking for, and their competition in the PPC camp are providing, seems to indicate), let them do so.

At this late date in the sagging platform, I don't care whose name is on the PDA, as long as it's running PalmOS, and is finally running on the hardware of the Jones'.

PalmOne's numbers decline quarter after quarter not because of the reasons they spout, but because users like me stick with their Tungsten C's and T3's until someone comes out with something iPaq-like or better. At this point it looks more likely that MS will get the PocketPC(or whatever it's called this week) to something viable before PalmOne gets back to viable hardware. It's 2005 and PalmOne's latest Tungsten still fails to include basic features that HandEra shipped in 2001:
-dual slots (with driver support for a *wide* range of non-palmone 3rd party cards, including ethernet, WiFi, bluetooth, CDPD, Barcode wand/laserscanner/hand scanner, GPS, etc)
-standard DC port
-user-replaceable lithium ion battery
-an LED that shows charging status and battery info in the launcher that even displays the discharge rate in milliamps.
-built-in backup to card software
-voice recording with no comprimises (a mic, dedicated button, and the ability to play these sounds in the built in file manager, as voice attachments to ToDo's, or play a voice memo as an alarm attached to a Datebook item). Granted these last features were in their OS4 which was under non-public beta for much of the 330's life but not released before they were edged out of the market.

Happily most of the rest of their innovations have made it into at least some of PalmOne's models.

But can we standardize of a robust case enclosure and a connector already? Instead of this waffling back and forth between metal and platic in the Tungsten line. And you've sold your last sled like accessory to me with this connector change again. I've got even *less* reason to buy a PalmOne device as my next replacement now don't I? That's like a phone carrier enticing a customer to renew their contract by saying "oh by the way, you have to pick a new phone number too).

I got no more patience for PalmOne's reasons for not putting features A, B, C *and* D, into a device when HandEra did it 4 years ago, and HP and Dell do it daily today, and for a lower sticker price.

Same rant I make every year, only many paragraphs shorter. PalmOne, build them or get out. PalmSource - Your licensing people aren't getting it done. Get it *done*.

Enough with the whining about declining market share. *You* make the market. Reference the ipod, and Mac Mini product segments, as imperfect products as they are, they go a *lot* further towards meeting expectations than the Tungsten "T5". Apple *made* their market, even as Palm did back in the day. Get back to making your market. Some 4000 years ago, the concept was you reap what you sow (Job 4:8 I believe). Today the contemporary business translation is, if you build crap, you get crappy quarter after quarter sales figues.

Cobalt well kick the ass of Symbian and Window Mobile just wait and see!

Perhaps when Palmone releases Cobalt it will be version 6.(3-x)!

Just because Cobalt is not released it doesn’t mean that symbian or winodws are ahead of the competition.

and other great hits like, "the blue crow flies at midnight".

I use windows, Symbian, and palm OS.
Even the MP3 player crashes to often on Symiban. Do you think I would trust the OS with advanced applications?

Window, that's nothing more than eye candy, and a worthless bundle of Microsoft in-house applications.

In case both of them were well ahead of Garnet, not to mention Cobalt, the Treo 650 would not have been so successful.

Mark

1. First of all, I don't think anyone can deny that the prominence and popularity of PDA's is declining. Although they are great devices for some, for many PDA's were a passing fad, along with dot-com mania and Cisco stock...

2. As long as a report clearly states what it defines as a 'handheld' or 'PDA', we can all take the numbers for what they are. However, it would be interesting to at least compare Palm's unit decline to their Treo unit sales. At least some of the missing PDA sales are due to people switching from Palm PDA's to Treo's.

3. Another poster mentioned that there was little need for most users to upgrade to new devices. I think that's true, you can keep packing more Ghz and MB into a PDA, and most people only need/want to use them as PIM's. A PDA has certain interface limitations (screen size and data input) that will always limit its functionality, no matter how fast or RAM-packed they are.

PDA's aren't dead, nor are the user communities for PDA's. However, it seems that the market for PDA's is definitely on the decline. Palm's greatest challenge (besides Symbian) will be to push smartphone buyers to its more expensive Treo models over cheaper units that may not be as smart, but can store plenty of contacts and other info.

But in some form or the other (with perhaps further downsizing in the future), I would expect Palm to continue operating for a while...The other possibility would be that their market cap(s) drops so low that they get integrated into another company, such as Symbian has largely become the possession of Nokia (assuming they buy Psion's remaining shares.) Symbian now feels less like a full-fledged OS and more like a product feature, which may happen to Palm someday (for better or for worse.)

No, they're not dead. But similarly, the most used features are static. Calendar on my m515 isn't much different than on a TE.

I upgraded to a Vx because I "had to have it". I upgraded to an m515 becaue I had to have a color screen. For all the niceties of the Tungsten, Treo and Zire lines, I don't "have to" have any of them. In fact, while I like the idea of the Treo 650, I don't actually like using one to make phone calls.

So I still have a 4 year old PDA. And part of my is still thinks that the Vx was the last really great design for a Palm handheld.

It is not a problem for me and any of my Treo 650-owning friends. And I suspect it's not an issue for 95% mainstream users. Plus there are known work-arouds like zLauncher and powerrun for this issue.

"PalmOne has probably blown the chance to sell another 20-40% of their existing Treo 600 customers an upgrade because of the severely downgraded memory of the 650. Another 40% of the 650 buyers now know or will soon know that the 650 memory is a problem going from minor annoyance to major problem to workaround (including hacking the ROM just to squeeze out a little more internal memory)."

I don't know how you got these numbers; they seem very high. And hacking the ROM will not increase your RAM.

"Is it any wonder that with decisions coming out of PalmOne lately like the "upgraded" Treo 650 they are finding people not buying their "latest and greatest"? When the innovation is stagnant or even backwards like what P1 is putting out, people will hold onto their perfectly functional old PDA and buy a Dell 4700 desktop with 512MB RAM and 17" LCD monitor for less than the price of the underpowered Treo 650... Unfortunately for PalmOne, sometimes their devices last beyond the warranty period nowadays."

Innovation is more than just hardware specs. iPod is a good example.....do you define an innovative portable music player by its hard drive/storage size? And your Dell PC with 17" LCD example is simply wrong. Desktops are generally cheaper than notebooks on an apple-to-apple hardware basis by a margin of 20-40%. By your reasoning above, why would anyone want to buy a notebook PC over a desktop PC?

Also, it makes you wonder how much longer they will continue to throw good money at a market in which they are making so little headway.

Time will tell, I suppose.

Marketshare in the PC realm is likely about the *only* number of Apple's they're not happy with.

Marketshare may be about the only number PalmSource *is* happy with on their books.

Would that Dell or Palm were "Most influential brand of the year" and runner up to Google for the previous to years, as Apple is. (See brandchannel.com or it reporting on CNN and Reuters.)

That Dell's, PalmOne's, or PalmSource's CEO's were in Time's most influential people of the 20th century's top 10 list in the Builders and Titans category, as Apple's is.

But hey, it's a brand new century, things could look up yet.