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 record 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 Palm, 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 his way, describing some new devices as the “hottest” in the spectrum of non-PDA handheld products.

Linux and Windows (CE and XP) seem to be the main directions for the OS future development. Palm One looks like the future leading provider of handhelds and the Palm OS will still be the leading operating system.

The good part is almost all handhelds synchronize with Microsoft Outlook, and Palm Desktop. When the user synchronizes, the data is backed up on both the handheld and the computer. Handhelds are very portable, so if someone loses the handheld, the data is safe back at the desktop. A new handheld will easily synchronize all the user’s data, calendars, contacts and applications back into the Palm.

The main direction seems to be a business forms solution that synchronizes PDA’s and smart phones to enterprises databases. Companies can quickly create data collection applications for mobile devices running on both Palm OS and Windows Mobile for pocket PC platforms.

Handheld Personal Digital Assistants are rapidly becoming a tool of choice for busy people. It is easier to access and manage information where decision support is crucial. The technology is rapidly changing and anybody can fit the handheld in the future.

There is db4o mobile database open source under GPL; it is fast, lean, and simple to deploy. It is also very affordable in high volumes. Mobile devices can use also SQL Server anytime, store object models, and relational models too. The transactions are safe; database software is the core of a great many applications, today and tomorrow. The choice of the right database software that will satisfy the project’s specific needs may be anything but easy. We are all searching for a fully customizable, easy to deploy database management software.

IBM Research is working on delivering a middleware system that will enable users to tap into the data on mobile devices to create a virtually unlimited pool of data and provide essentially infinite access to the Internet, the company said.

Stefan Schoenauer, a researcher at the company’s Almaden Research Center in San Jose, Calif., said IBM Research, as part of the company’s IBM Extreme Blue program, has developed a prototype of a data-sharing middleware platform for mobile devices that will enable heterogeneous devices, regardless of their operating systems or hardware, to access the network via various communication modes, including device-to-device direct communications.

The middleware platform, code-named Infinity, will allow users to use mobile devices to search and analyze limitless amounts of data that was previously inaccessible, Schoenauer said. In addition, the system has built-in security and privacy features that allow users to control authorized access levels.

The possibilities for new applications would be infinite, the IBM team decided, hence the code name for the project.

Indeed, IBM’s research team, which has a group of undergraduate engineering students and an MBA student at its core, proposed that Infinity would significantly transform the Internet by allowing access to the world’s highly distributed data sources. Moreover, the technology marks a critical first step toward exploring how integration in mobile networks could precipitate the growth of a new information marketplace, IBM said.

IBM officials said they believe Infinity will provide a middleware framework for linking heterogeneous mobile devices into real-time, mobile, ad hoc networks that can process queries and share data. Riding the wave of the rapidly increasing number of mobile phones, PDAs and other portable computing devices, Infinity could help to shift the Internet from a network of pages to a network of data sources, IBM said.

Infinity is based on a number of industry-standard technologies, including XML, HTTP, HTML, JavaScript and Bluetooth technology.

“We came up with this broad vision that mobile devices have a lot of capacity and [thought about] what we could do with all the data on these devices,” Schoenauer said. “We have all this data in a lot of different formats, and its the middleware’s job to translate those different formats,” he added.

IBM’s prototype is notable because as yet there is no standard way to share data between diverse mobile devices directly in ad hoc networks. And because the variety of mobile operating systems offers so many different programming environments and interfaces, applications have to be custom-developed for each platform. The vast range of data types, database software and connection hardware involved make it difficult to achieve broad-spectrum mobile device integration. Infinity technology will improve cross-platform integration and communication for mobile applications, and will enable application developers to more easily develop applications for a variety of mobile devices, IBM said.

Despite those devices’ price, Bill Gates thinks the future lays the handheld devices’ way. The Maemo development environment will allow to port applications without having to purchase an Internet Tablet. The only problem is the steep price tag.

Typical applications include supply chain management in warehouses, package delivery, route accounting, medical treatment and record keeping in hospitals, facilities maintenance and management, parking enforcement, access control and security, capital asset maintenance, meter and reading by utilities, and “wireless waitress” applications.

A lightweight, hand-held, usually pen-based computer used as a personal organizer is the ideal solution for managing contacts, appointments and tasks. As it includes a name and address database, calendar, to-do list and note taker, Personal Digital Assistants may also offer e-mail, Web browsing and cellular phone services, their future looks brighter than ever. Data are synchronized between the PDA and desktop computer via a cabled connection or wireless.

Psion Teklogix provides handheld, tablet, and vehicle mounted computers for the industrial, commercial, and professional markets. The company intends to develop its production for portable computing systems to customers in the airline, industrial manufacturing, materials handling, and transportation industries among others.

Apple: their famous product Newton, failed commercially, but defined and launched the new category of computing and was a forerunner and inspiration of devices as Palm Pilot and Pocket PC.

Blackberry is the all-in-one wireless data and voice device from Research in Motion. This product is available in cell phone and PDA sizes, the popular devices that extend the office to the road, providing e-mail, phone, text messaging, Web browsing, organizer, as well as paging, instant messaging and corporate data access.

Third-party applications are also available: Java (using the J2ME set of libraries), Visual Studio .NET making possible the development in C# or VB .NET. A growing number of third party commercial applications will be available for Blackberry in the future. These include applications in sales force automation, customer relationship management, remote IT administration and integrated instant messaging, Google talk, Yahoo Messenger and MSN Messenger.

Complex, attractive and affordable, Compaq iPAQ H3600 is the flagship of HP products, successfully distributed in US and Europe. Their production will be expanded with increased ROM size and 16-bit screens, incorporated SD card reader and highest RAM capacity of any Pocket PC, integrated Bluetooth, too. A smaller, slimmer frame will make it more competitive in terms of portability.

Interface type infrared, USB, Bluetooth wireless technology, serial and Wi-Fi, special features as led notification, GSM, GPRS, EDGE, sound notification will make it very special. Operating system can be Microsoft Mobile Pocket PC 2003, Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0, and Microsoft Mobile Pocket PC 2003 2^nd edition.

Sharp’s business is pointed at the electronics market; its flagship component business makes LCDs, flash memory, integrated circuits, and laser diodes. The PDAs made by Sharp are respecting the same high quality level.