Oct 23, 2005

For the last four years I’ve been telling everyone how PDA’s were going to take over as a leader in IT. I’ve pushed mobile development to no ends. I purchased my first PDA about 5 years ago and fell in love with it! I thought it was great that you could get every bit of technology available at your fingertips. The surprising thing is that it hasn’t taken over the world. There has been technology that has come and gone since the creation of the PDA. And it has just blown me away.

I’ve had people ecstatic about their new iPod… But when I tell them that my PDA can do everything their iPod does it doesn’t excite them at all. But honestly, it does everything! In addition to playing mp3s, I can also store my appointments, tasks, emails, contacts, and even make a phone call!!!

92% of new hard drive-based MP3 players sold are iPods. Mac World says in 2004 they sold over 8.4 Million iPods!!! To compare, that’s less than 1 million PDA’s shipped! 9.2 million units were shipped in 2004

How can a product that has so much more than a competitor just barely squeak by in sales, loose horribly in popularity, and gain so much customer loyalty. Yes, customer loyalty… ask someone with an iPod to trade it in for a Dell mp3 player with twice as much storage, and they’ll laugh in your face. But this entry is not a rant about iPod’s being a glorified mp3 player; its about the lack of penetration of PDAs.

My conclusion is that it’s a lot like the beginning of laptops. Everyone thought that their were going to be new spin-offs developed with this technology. Instead, it seems that it will just be a bi-product of some of the larger companies. Dell and HP will develop the hardware while MS and other large developers will manage the software. When the laptop was developed, everyone thought that in 5 years you wouldn’t see a desktop… but they’re still around and still more prominent than laptops.

I love PDA’s but I don’t think they’ll storm the market anytime soon.

There are a few things that could prove me wrong. These things might increase the usage of PDAs.

• Phone Technology – As cellular phones become more popular, it increases the need for other mobile technology.
• Mergers and Acquisitions – As companies continue to merge and combine corporate knowledge and products, the usage will inevitably rise.
• iPod – Even though I just complained about the popularity of the iPod, it could easily adapt to the customers wants/needs. You can now play video on your iPod, why can’t you sync it with your Mail program, to do list, contacts, etc. iPod could soon become your PDA.
• Google – well… not just google but any company that is trying to push the limits of technology. New opportunities create new opportunities. I love http://maps.google.com and we’ve already seen a lot of neat mashups.