It is not a secret that the business users influence the future of handheld devices: mobile devices, like laptops, PDA’s, Blackberry and cell phones. Early adopters are using also Flash memory storage devices, MP3 players, digital cameras, digital cam recorders, handheld gaming devices and GPS receivers.
Wireless devices are those not directly connected via wire or cable to the hardware they interact with. These include an increasing variety of hand held devices, such as mobile (cell) phones and peripherals such laptops and PCs making use of wireless area networks (WANs) to communicate with each other.
Those devices range the full spectrum of smart phones and Wi-Fi embedded PDA devices with built-in cameras, music and video clip players and high-resolution screens for pictures. Some devices support Bluetooth and some are wireless.
Mergers and acquisitions in the handheld industry are pointing to a market division between Microsoft’s pocket PC and PalmOne devices. Newer PDAs also have color screens and audio capabilities, enabling them to be used as mobile phones (smart phones), Web browsers or media players. Many PDAs can access the Internet, intranets or extranets via Wi-Fi, or Wireless Wide Area Networks (WWANs). One of the most significant PDA characteristics is the presence of a touch screen.
In medicine, PDAs have been proven to aid diagnosis and drug selection and some studies have concluded that their use by patients to records symptoms improves the effectiveness of communication with hospitals during follow-up.
According to a recent market study, the overall market for PDAs grew by 20.7% in the third quarter of 2005, compared to 2004, with market share resolving as follows:
- Palm OS for Pal, Inc. PDAs and some other licensees – 14.9% (declining)
- Windows Mobile for PDAs that comply with the Microsoft’s Pocket PC specifications – 49.5 (increasing)
- RIM Blackberry for Blackberry PDA - 25% (increasing)
- Symbian OS – 5.8% (increasing)
- Various operating systems based on the Linux kernel for various special designed PDAs (many other supported) – 0.7% (stable)
- Other- 4.4% (stable)
More that any other computer devices, the PDA lacks the fully blown infrastructure of a Wireless Broadband network. WiMax could offer this in future.
What about a non-PDA handheld future? Challenges abound. “You don’t have the benefits of the larger devices or the portability of the smaller device”, the Guardian Unlimited has quoted Gartner analyst Ken Delanay. He says it’s a “1 kg wasteland”, neither standard notebook nor PDA/Smartphone. Within the last four years, we’ve seen announcements for a lot of computers with what can be called eBook compatible design goals. Some of them haven’t gone into production or been brought to the U.S. Some of them are so unexpectedly priced that they will never have a real market.
In the Guardian article, quoting Ken Delaney, reporter Mary Banscombe said, “Ill fated Linux-based Pads launched by Sony, Honeywell, Gateway, 3Com, Intel and even AOL.” Having Linux as OS hasn’t meant a device would be able to run all open-source software we can install.
Still, Bill Gates thinks the future lies this way, describing some new devices as the “hottest” in the spectrum of non-PDA handheld products.
