Worldwide PDA shipments totaled 3.4 million units in the first quarter of 2005, a 25 percent increase from the same period last year, according to Gartner, Inc. Microsoft Windows Mobile has become the No. 1 PDA operating system, as it accounted for 46 percent of worldwide shipments. RIM assumed the second position, as Palm OS slipped to the No. 3 ranking, due to Palm OS shipments declining 38.8 percent. Nokia in the fourth place.
Worldwide PDA Shipments Jump By 25 Percent
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Eugenia Loli
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I thougth their marked was shrinked cause the advanced cell phones.
These numbers are flawed. Gartner does not count the Treo 650 as a PDA. That’s the only reason the PalmOS numbers have declined that much.
Why don’t they count it as a PDA? I don’t thhink you are right. They DO mention many other smartphone/PDAS in the same press release, so I don’t see why the Treo is not counted.
I really wish Palm OS 6 would be used. I’m waiting to be amazed by it so I can buy a new pda
Believe me, they have counted some other smartphones, but they did NOT count the Treos. More information can be found here (in German):
http://www.it-news.de/0505/37889.html
Where I live, Northern Virginia, the Treos have become almost as commonplace as iPods.. At least 5 people at work have them (and we’re a tiny company) and I see them all the time in restaurants, the metro, whatnot.
Had they been counted, the results would be very different.
PC World and every other report I’ve read says that RIM’s Blackberry is now #1. Check out the reports on Google News.
I don’t know if the treos were counted or not, but from what I see they are incredibly popular. In the last month, I’ve seen more Treos than all other PDAs combined. I think with the 650 they’ve finally reached the point where the PDA is small enough to be a cell phone (not for me, but for most people. I’m holding out for smaller). So if this doesn’t count Treos, that’s a major flaw.
OTOH, I work right outside of Baltimore, so maybe this is just a mid atlantic thing.
why wouldn’t they count the treo while counting the blackberry and mobile windows? That sounds like they are deliberately trying to reduce Palm’s market share.
Guess palm must have canceled their overpriced gartner subscriptions.
…which are categorized as Smartphones. See the bottom of the text in the linked document to see what is excluded.
http://www.gartner.com/press_releases/asset_126216_11.html
On that note, it DOES seem fair to exclude the Treo, as it REALLY is positioned as a Smartphone. It’s a weird one, as it’s more of a PDA hybrid, but then again, some Symbian devices would fit that category, too.
From the article (bold emphasis mine):
Notes: Totals do not include smartphones, such as the Treo 650 and BlackBerry 7100, but include wireless PDAs, such as the iPAQ 6315 and Nokia 9300.
From Nokia’s 9300 product page (again, bold emphasis mine):
Inspire others by the way you manage your business and your life. Introducing the Nokia 9300, a sophisticated mobile phone designed to enhance your work style while complementing your personal style.
The link to the Nokia page is:
http://www.nokia.com/nokia/0,,60764,00.html
On that same page, Nokia refers to it as a smartphone. I’m not saying the 9300 should have been excluded; I’m saying that if they are going to call the 9300 a PDA, they should be fair and let the Treo be classified as a PDA as well. It seems to me that Gartner is purposefully disqualifying the Treo 650 as a smartphone, even though you can buy one without phone service and have a 100% fully functional Palm-based PDA.
In other words, I smell something, and it ain’t roses.
Where’s that end of PDA’s that was touted so much half a year ago? Then I said myself, how can such delirium be true and now I see I was right – PDA’s go forward. It’s just ridiculous to suggest change useful PDA to small smartphone without touch screen!
I see a lot of PDA’s with GPS and route software who will never ever leave their car. Are they really PDA’s
First of all, ALL RIM devices are smartphones, bar none! The ONLY RIM device that is excluded (7100) is more phone that the rest, but the fact still stands that crackberries are still phones/PDAs. Their OS is even geared toward connectivity.
ALL nokia devices are smartphones, and the HP 6315 is a smartphone, it runs WM2003SE Smartphone edition! I do not see how Gartner left the Treo out. The Treo is just as much a PDA as the nokia a HP devices.
The article might be flawed but the research is… well, basically fine. It’s just how the staff writer interpreted the results and wrote the article about it. You have to look at the Gartner Report.
There’s some interpretation of the results. How the categories are divided between devices is precarious. The division between PDA’s, smartphones and RIM, is unclear. Further, it’s very possible to own more than one of these devices so % marketshare is inaccurate. PDA’s aren’t really great for sending email (unless if you have a keyboard), but RIM isn’t great for other stuff. In all though, HP didn’t notice any declines (no noticable gains either), which, to me, means that
Very funny indeed, this resamble me the glory days of vapourware and astroturfing of Windows 95, when nobody was using it, but plenty of magazines started freaking out saying “Guindows is everywhere”.
Interesting debate about Treo being or not a PDA, but no one comments the numbers. I also have read everywhere that PDAs marketshare was shrinking. 25% looks like a very big growth to me.
This article didn’t show the numbers, so it’s hard to comment on them. 25% is up for interpretation, especially since the biggest increase came from RIM and second was a new entry from Nokia… I didn’t even know they made PDA’s, yet they accounted for 350K units. Those two entries combined for about 35% total increase. HP iPAQ’s were level, but Palm and Linux both fell (slightly). Some say that a certain Palm device should’ve been included. I’m not a Palm user, so I have no idea about that.