Sony’s decision to cut back its PDA business isn’t a huge surprise. The popularity of the personal digital assistant has been steadily eroded by smart phones, digital cameras, music players and other devices that can provide many PDA functions. Check out the article portal here.
Is the PDA dead?
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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I want a PDA to use for collecting attendance, viewing student grades on the fly, checking off homework, and other such classroom administrative activities.
I recently (few months back) made my first PDA purchase, as it is actually applicable to my life these days. I have been very happy with it, and it indeed does make my life easier in many regards. Also, I have a very nice Sony Ericsson with many of the same features as my PDA, but in my way would I ever try to use my cell phone as a serious PDA-esque utility.
I strongly feel that PDAs are still extremely useful and needed, and that I would rather two devices that do one thing each well (sound familiar UNIX folk?), then one do-it-all device.
but in my way would I ever…
Should read, “but in no way would I ever”.
Also it should be said that I shopped the market heavily and found the Sony PDAs to be pricey for their slow clock speeds, low memory, and the fact that I really don’t like PalmOS. They do have nice cameras, but I had no use for a camera on my PDA, thats what a digi-cam is for, one which was made to do just that and not five other things.
Sorry for my mistake, i want to write:
Apple, Steve Jobs and the makers of the first PDA
The Newton, already said this..
I’m spanish, and my english isn’t so good…
Sony’s big mistake was not going with Microsoft’s PocketPC OS
HP/Toshiba/Dell are doing brisk business with Microsoft’s PocketPC. PalmOS is dead. It’s Sony’s anti-microsoft stance that has come back to bite them….whatever you say, MS does get things right. Wait for Motorola + Microsoft Mobile Phone edition to wipe out Sony’s handset business next.
the beauty of the newton was that it was a personal digital assistant, not a pdc (personal digital camera), not a pdmb (personal digital music box), nor a pdspomfk (personal digital show pictures of my friggin kids). and has far as microsoft having things right, what planet are you on? the dell pocketpc is lame imho, toshiba just left the market, and viewsonic is probably on the way out. i sincerly hope that the survivor of all this will be a treo 600 without the camera with tons of memory.
I have a sony clie, I must say I haven’t used it much, bought it for reason, but then didn’t have that reason soon after. Still it’s pretty nice.
Smart phones will not kill the PDA, smart phones need to watch their back. I have a Sony Ericsson 610, i use it as a phone. I have never used the camera in it (don’t have the service to send them to myself, don’t have a cable if such exist to transfer to my computer, frankly don’t care). The features I use are in order, the phone, alarm. Thats is. I want just a phone. I want it to be small, not a flip phone, and no antenna sticking out (this is why I got the 610, that and it was cheap with my plan), get good battery life, have a vibrate ring, have a easy to use phone book, and a easy to read screen, oh and get great recption (which it doesn’t here, but I blame Pennsylvania, not the phone). The phone basicly meets my requirements, but has mountains of features I don’t want, but most are standard on the phones today, or ones that have just what i want are crappy clunky phones.
The phone has so many things i care less about, anything thats past calling people, is pretty worthless to me, but the alarm is real handy. All these features just make the interface suck. so many menus and such. I also don’t see how you can use it as a orginizer and phone, since often you find yourself talking on the phone while needing to put something in your orginizer, that just doesn’t work.
I think for the moment cramming as much stuff as they can in a phone will grow, but soon people will have anough and realize a small PDA that is seperate from their phone is what they want. A PDA you will keap for years, a phone you tend to get a new one every year. A PDA is a peice of electronics gear you keap till is dies, a phone is something you toss around and beat and replace all the time, the only thing of importance is your phone book, and the little cards in them now fix that issue.
At some point phones that are just phones will become popular, think of a phone like a 610 if you ditched the display for a simple one that just shows what you need to dial and look through phone book, no color and so forth. no cpu hungry OS on it, just a phone, it could be half the size (maybe, definitly can be smaller when you get creative with the screen shape), you’d get great battery life, and the phone would be cheap. But then again, who knows is phone makers want to have the most popular phone cost 10 bucks.
also, to put what I said as an analogy, think of why the iPod is so popular. It doesn’t have much in features, but it’s simple and small, and does one thing very well. This is what a cell phone should do to, I think most people want this. How many people actualy use all the other stuff on their phone?
Merging of some things is good. But things like Camaras need to be just cameras, music players just music players, phones phones. Most everything else is where a PDA comes in.
If anything kills off the PDA it isn’t another device, it’s just people deciding they don’t need one and a pen and paper work great.
I second your mocion!
I want a treo with a high resolution widescreen (i like the one in the PSP), Edge/UMTS, wifi, bluetooth, internal antenna, an improved miniqwerty keyboard that folds up like Sony Ericsson P800/900, 256Mb internal memory at least (an 1″ HDD like those from cornice & hitachi in the iPod could be so great, at least as a BTO option..), usb 2.0 host port (for connecting cameras..), Palm Os 6 or an os that supports VoIP, IPv6, Instant Messaging trough MSN, AIM & Yahoo with support for audio in the three networks, inkwell or a better system for input text with pen, syncronization with mac os x, with a weight of 250h or less, and the most important a really really good battery (20h normal working, 10h with wifi, 6h phone/edge/umts), all for less than 400$… well, the truth is that i could pay as much as 600$
I think its posible today, the PSP is similar, but its not a PDA..
Well.. i’m dreaming
I have an Palm M100. I’ve barely used it because its too clumsy to write stuff using graffiti. Lugging a keyboard around isn’t ideal either. If I wanted a laptop I would bring one. And, I already have a desktop computer.
I think the size of the Blackberries are the best PDA solution of all even though the idea -> SMS to replace the cellphone. RIM has a ‘monopoly’ on the market right now on the smaller size ones, for instance the 850 and 950 (though most carriers have discountinued them). The prices are atrocious to boot. If when a lower cost one comes out with similar features I think this would have a good chance on the ‘PDA wars’.
the beauty of the newton was that it was a personal digital assistant, not a pdc (personal digital camera), not a pdmb (personal digital music box), nor a pdspomfk (personal digital show pictures of my friggin kids). and has far as microsoft having things right, what planet are you on? the dell pocketpc is lame imho, toshiba just left the market, and viewsonic is probably on the way out. i sincerly hope that the survivor of all this will be a treo 600 without the camera with tons of memory.
The only beauty of the newton was that it was ahead of its time.
It dosen’t hold a flame to the current technology.
I wonder how reliable will the Microsoft OS be on mobile phones after all the problems with Windows.
Can’t say my iPaq has any problems whatsoever. Its actually a damn fine OS.
No, it’s not because of PocketPC. the only reason PocketPC is erroding palm is because of more liberal licensing compared to palmsource.
PDA’s aren’t dead. They now just have telephones built in.. Called “Smart Phones”.
You can get PDA’s on ebay for half the price no matter the brand. It’s a Different story with smart phones.
You simply get more for your money and due to the CELLPHONE market smartphones (PDA + Telephone) has become much more popular. It makes clear sense. I’d want a smart phone running PalmOS.
PalmOne, Inc. saw this. That’s why they acquired Handspring.
And no, Palm isn’t going to die.
It’s all a PocketPC vs. PalmOS vs. Symbian vs. Blackberry.. oh wait blackberry doesnt have a smart phone out..
I have had a couple of earlier palm devices, but I stopped carrying them around. My phone has numbers/adresses, and the rest is really just fluff.
I never liked Dell’s PDAs. HP’s was nice though..
Have any of you checked out PalmOS Cobalt? Very nice OS compared to the old Palm.
One funny thing is that a major radio ‘tech woman’ comentator said that PocketPC’s are better since they can run your Windows Desktop Applications. I think her name was kim kommando…as she convinced people to use pocketpc instead of palm. I haven’t listend to talk radio since.
Why can’t a smart phone also be a personal digital assistant? oh yeah
it can be that too 🙂
I think most people who are beating this story to the ground forget that sony is one, still in the Japan market, and two still a part of Sony-Ericson. I think sony is betting on its Smartphone platform as the future of the US market. They have some cool stuff over a SE. Honestly, with built in apps and Java my T610 does almost as much as my old palms did… at lease in so far as productivity apps. The P900 easily out classes all but the very best of what Palm and Pocket PC bring to the table. I think Sony is more refocusing then pulling out. Of cource, I could be wrong. Maybe I can get one of those cool UX models cheap now…
It’s simple. I want a phone / MP3 player / portable USB Drive / camera with a mini hdd maybe 20 GB. MP3 players are smaller than phones at this point anyway so the only thing left to do is squeeze in a high quality camera and calendar and I’m sold.
it’s fun to have a handheld running linux
—
Zaurus SL-5500
OpenZaurus 3.3.6pre1 / OPIE 1.1.4-snapshot
In a market like the one we’ve been experiencing, about the last thing I want is forty mediocre implementations of forty different features integrated into a $400+ “smart phone.” When I upgrade, or when my phone dies, there are just too many eggs in one basket. The comment about iPods was right. Consumers don’t want this shit. They want simple devices that work well.
As I said before, I still find use for my Palm Vx (8MB), mainly because of its specific utility. I have Vindigo installed, and I’m an NYC dweller, so that helps for having instant access to maps, movie listings, ATM machines, restaurants, even bathrooms, all without needing WiFi access. Aside from that, I put reminders on it (BugMe), read articles on train rides (AvantGo), and play the occasional came (DopeWars). Learning Italian so I have a full dictionary with conjugator on there (UltraLingua) for when I read Italian newspapers, I have Due Yesterday for my homework assignments and HandyShpr for my occasional shopping lists.
All in 8MB. And I’ve had this Palm for like 6 years. The only thing that feels obsolete is the serial hotsync connection, which I could upgrade to USB if I really had the will in me.
The only reason smart phones are popular is because the vendors (Verizon, TMobile, whatever) don’t give consumers a choice over their phones. How many people do you know who bought their phone retail (as opposed to getting it with a 1-year contract or whatever?). I have a “dumb” phone which works perfectly well and usually gets better reception than my friends with smart phones on the same plan. Plus, I don’t have to deal with the complete wastes of time of trying to fit MP3s onto 64MB of flash memory or dealing with Outkast ringtones. But I’ve had 3 cell phones before this. And before I had a cell phone, I had my Palm Vx. Aren’t you guys all tired of having to deal with upgrading these stupid devices? God forbid something lasts more than 6 months anymore.
I guess Sharp saw the writing on the wall a year ago, and therefor is more or less only selling it’s PDAs in Japan. Just as Sony now has decided. PocketPC vendors are also seeing a cut back in their sales.
The competition from small laptops and smartphones are here to stay.
Trolltech just released their Qtopia Phone Edition.
If I was to be buying a new “PDA”, it would eighter be a MP3 player with a harddisk running a PDA OS (one example on such a product is the coming Archos AV500 – http://theqtopian.net/modules/news/article.php?storyid=90) or a smartphone like SonyEricsson 900.
As much as you can say.. Convergence is good, it’s true that smartphones cost too much today, but hey there is no a big difference in price with PDA’s and you can buy one smartphone for less if you buy it trough a mobile operator..
The Reality of what consumers want isn’t what you say, in europe Nokia sell more Series 60 phones than PalmOne PDA’s..
Here in spain, you can buy a nokia 3650 for 89€ with amena (a mobile operator..)
I Think a PDA without communications is unuseful..
It’s like a PC without internet..
U can say you put all the maps and info you want in your pda, but for me and a lot of people if you can’t update this info in realtime is unuseful..
Don’t Think in smartphones today, think in smartphones tomorrow with the specs i’ve said before..
Multifunction devices doesn’t necesarily be complicated or hard, you can make a multifunction device that is simple and works well…
Though, i don’t like any of the smartphones you can buy today.. Those cheap and stupid integrated VGA cameras sucks.
But there is no need of a camera in a smartphone because there aren’t lens smaller enough to produce a similar quality like my Canon Digital Rebel SLR..
But you can make a smartphone that can play digital audio and it’s as easy as the iPod or other mp3 players..
You can make a smartphone that it’s better suited as an address book, calendar, and other organizations features..
You can make a smartphone that it’s the best comunication device…
The problem is that this smartphone doesn’t exist, probably PalmOne could make a good work with the next Treo..
Bring ON!
Pads are great but only at the right price. €350-€400 to me is the max one of these should set you back! But the sweet spot is around the €150-200 mark. You can get Laptops now for €1000! So if the Pad is over the 500 mark it almost make sense to go all the way and get the laptop.
Also battery life, the Palm III with 2xAAA gave me about a month of everyday usage! I upgraded to the Palm IIIc and only got about 3-7 days depending on the screen’s back light setting. The other at that time only gave less then 12 hours!
The Palm III had it right, we usable and extendal but good battery life and it was simple.
I don’t think Sony’s decision to stop selling PDAs is a surprise to anyone, but I don’t think the state of the PDA market is the only reason for it.
Sony has smart phones based on Symbian, PDAs based on PalmOS and the PSP based on their own proprietary platform. Even though each one is designed for a different market there is a clear need to consolidate the various platforms.
The problem Sony has had for a while is that each part of Sony is independent and they very rarely work together, sometimes there are even rivalries between divisions (for example the music distribution business and the consumer electronics division over the use of mp3 technology).
What the next step for them will be I’m not too sure. But if I was to speculate I would say that leveraging the Symbian platform to produce a PDA or a PDA with phone capabilities would be a step forward. The only problem with that though is the power Nokia (one of the main competitors to SonyEricsson) has over Symbian the company.
– Multimedia player (with TV output)
– Mobile internet terminal
– Phone over IP
– Mobile visioconference terminal
– Mobile laptop (what about some external screen output and USB connectivity (I mean master USB
=) (external mouse, keyboard,….) ))
But you have to wait till we have wifi everywhere and big bandwith.
Multimedia phones will be useless then.
Too small to fiddle with for most people, way too expensive until recently (and still) and not long lasting enough and crap at exchanging data.
And it is typical that these guys never developped and implemented a common reconciliation protocol that could be used by all parties.
Yesterday I reconciled my T610 with my Powerbook, and it worked out of the box thanks to bluetooth.
Smartphones have a better potential because telecom companies have to agree standards since they have watchdogs on their backs that won’t allow one company to completely dominate the phone market. so they have to collaborate to allow customers to move network and change devices.
Microsoft, Palm, Psion all thought they could own their user base with technical restrictions rather than cool features. I happy each time I see the model collapsing.
“I wonder how reliable will the Microsoft OS be on mobile phones after all the problems with Windows.
Can’t say my iPaq has any problems whatsoever. Its actually a damn fine OS.”
Cant say that I have had any problems with Windows XP either!
what i would like to see is a reliable set of interconnecting items useing bluetooth.
say i can use my pda to browse the images stored on my digital camera and then tell then write up a small email on my pda, include the images i want from the camera and beam them over my cellphone resting in my pocket. small items that do one task and do them good rather then big items that do 1001 diffrent tasks. this is the philosophy behind the unic commandline and i do belive it works nicely in this enviroment to. motorola had a concept similar to this that i hope will come into production in one way or other.
as for why useing bluetooth when intel is comeing up with Wusb? well bluetooth have the transfer protocolls buildt in. wusb are just a serial connection system where every software maker and his dog can put a protocol on top of. with bluetooth you can be damn sure that if the item says it can transfer files then it can transfer files to all other bluetooth devices that allso support file transfer. all bluetooth needs is a slightly higher bandwidth (it was never designed to transfer isos or similar, if you want that use wlan!).
in this enviroment you will be able to mix and match pdas, phones, cameras and whatsnot from diffrent makers without breaking a sweat looking for compatible gear or cables.
I think you’ve nailed it. That’s what everybody wants. But the IT industry hate standards. It’s the telecoms industry that’s imposing bluetooth. Hope they get the upper hand.
That’s why I prefer smartphones.
sony had only 5, 6% of the market… that don’t really affect palm…
sony product are always too expensive
sony missed several computer technology…
they miss a lot of money
new palm os 6 come out soon and have a lot of new stuff
the future is in smartphone… they have a couple of company who sell palm phone: samsung, treo, kyocera and others from china
Far from being dead PDAs have enjoyed a recent surge in sales here in Europe, in contrast to the US where sales have indeed been somewhat flat. Then again, mobile phone take-up in the states has also been relatively slower in the US, so perhaps other factors are to blame. Also, Sony have not said they’re pulling out of PDA manufacturing altogether, only in Europe and the US. In Japan they intendd to keep making new models.
I have a T610 and a Tungsten T3, and I love the combination. I can surf, mail, ssh, whatever. In short, they complement each other wonderfully thanks to Bluetooth.
…(contd)
I think that the ‘smartphone vs pda’ debate – rather like the ‘Bluetooth vs WiFi’ one – is creating a war where there doesn’t need to be conflict. Smartphones and PDAs are not mutually exclusive any more than laptops and PCs are.
and they offer better sales potential. Sony’s PDA were becomming tiny laptops anyway.
I think the PDA is in no-mans land. It too small to be functional (for some people) and too big to be as portable as phones (most people have tiny little phones).
PDA’s are going to be replaced by small laptops (though not as small as the sony clies) and smart phones.
Fasttap (http://www.digitwireless.com/) will really push smart phones forward. That will help producers offer smaller and cheaper smart phones as well which will really help.
I’m surprised that the sidebar of the article predicts that Microsoft’s connected device market share is going to grow at the expense of Symbian. Considering that smart phone growth is much higher than PDA’s and Microsft has basically no presence in the smart phone market (and is unlikely to get any after trying to destroy there original main partner Sendo), which Symbian leads. If anything it should be the other way around.
What I believe is really hurting PDAs is that they are slow in the take-up of new technology. For instance, how many PDAs offer 802.11b or 802.11g, built in? How many offer both that and bluetooth?
Sony managed to integrate a lot of extra gadgets, adding small keyboards and digital cameras, but in the end these things add to the price of the PDA, making them compete with more powerful PDAs. While the more powerful PDAs often didn’t have those features, they also weren’t features that appeal to everyone looking for PDAs, therefore they were more likely to get the users that really wanted those things, but most users would go for the PDAs with more powerful processors and more RAM. Additionally, those extra features are often available as add-ons for the more powerful PDAs, meaning that often the user that really wanted that functionality could add it later, thereby separating the cost of the camera or keyboard from that of the PDA, an option they don’t have if the devices are integrated.
I’d also have to say from my own experience and that of those around me that Microsoft seems to have the better solution, at least from end-user perspectives, to the problem of handling stylus input (in other words, handwriting recognition). The PalmOS devices basically require you to learn to write (more or less) in a way that it can interpret, in a particular area of the device. On the PocketPC devices, you write wherever you wish and the device learns your handwriting through a combination of it’s handwriting recognition and learning through the corrections you make to it’s interpretation of your handwriting. Additionally, they allow for entry in a manner similar to PalmOS devices, restricting entry to a particular area of the screen and expecting you to write in a particular manner, or a software keyboard displayed on the screen (which has to be the slowest way to enter data even when you’re picking up the device for the first time).
SmartPhones impact the market for PDAs simply because they are nearing the same capabilities of PDAs (in part because mobile phones, unlike PDAs, often pick up new technologies very quickly) and the cost of the phone is partially reduced by cell companies. The only real problems on the phone side of things are that it’s much less common for devices to have widely available accessories beyond some that modify appearance and that carriers (at least in the US) don’t carry a large variety of phones, or necessarily carry the newest phones, except in the largest markets (where, it would seem, the actual service seems to be worse in many cases, with large rural areas being the obvious exception of being a small market and having poor service).
If the PDA market is suffering my bet is the market is saturated and the users just see no reason to upgrade.
If you have bought a PDA in the last 4 to 5 years there really is no compelling reason to buy a new one. Heck, think about all the people still using Newtons.
I have a Palm IIIx – that I bought in 99 – I use it pretty much just for an organizer (calendar, contacts, tasks, etc). Despite all the bells and whistles of newer PDA my ancient IIIx has the core functionality. Would it be nice to have all those features that I will rarely use? Sure, but as long as my current device keeps working I will hold off.
I don’t want a phone + pda. I want a phone AND pda. I like the separation. I have used both Palm and Pocket PC (starting with the Philips NINO) and I like the Palm for its simplicity of use but the Pocket PC for its range of uses and features. I actually just sold my T2 and I am getting a new Dell X30 (yes, the one with 624MHz).
In my opinion, this is a very smart move on Sony’s part. What the articles don’t explicitly state is that Sony was really splitting itself between two portable OS strategies–Palm and Symbian. Since it does have a large stake in Symbian and in fact developed its own interface for the Symbian OS, and since the market seems to be moving away from standalone PDAs and toward smartphones, getting out of the Palm market makes sense, particularly in Europe where the Symbian market is strongest. Now that Sony can focus all of its handheld energies on Symbian, I can’t wait to see what they come up with next.
to my understanding, palm managed to outsell sony and palm had less models in production.
Sony should have just cut back on production to stay inline with the PDA market.,, and enter smart phone land with palm cobalt
Maybe it’s just me, but the feature I most want from modern PDAs is a keyboard. Cameras, picture viewers, movie players, no thanks – a device with a screen that small doesn’t really seem suitable for getting the detail of an image to me. But something with a compact but usable, integrated keyboard is important to me.
I still use a Psion Revo, which is invaluable for writing documents (5000+ words) on the move. My girlfriend uses a Psion Series 5. Both highly usable for serious writing, but compact, light weight and instant-on, which is better than a laptop. Not to mention the improved battery life.
It’s a shame that, since Psion stoppped making PDAs, there hasn’t been much in the way of compact devices with a keyboard. This is a pity, because the modern screens are superior and a slightly more powerful CPU would be useful for spell checking.
Is there no-one else who misses being able to _really_ type on these things?
take a look at the sharp’s zaurus line, those have buildt in keyboard (alltho you type useing your thumbs) and best of all run neither palm nor pocketpc but linux
personaly i want one of those with bluetooth so that i can use my t610 to go online