PDAs: A fickle market

Ask any personal digital assistant (PDA) evangelist which company makes the best devices, and they'll tell you Psion's the clear leader, or that Palm is, of course. In fact, put Psion and Palm owners in the same room and, after a small grapple for supremacy, they'll calm down and agree that each has its merits.

But you'll never hear such passionate support for Microsoft in the PDA market. The various Windows CE and PocketPC devices are fashionably mocked to within an inch of their lives. So why is it that Palm has just written off a huge inventory and Psion has pulled out of the consumer PDA business altogether, while Microsoft announces soaring sales for PocketPC?

I know you'll be fed up of hearing about Psion by now, but this is the British company which, essentially, invented the PDA back in 1984. But it is important to remove the rose-tinted spectacles and be brutal. The Series 3 and 5 were ground breaking when they were released, but that was back in 1991 and 1997, respectively.

Since then, they've received little in upgrades, apart from increased memory and clock speeds. Don't even get me started on their unforgivable lack of a built-in modem, and I don't count buying and carrying a separate box or relying on a mobile phone as an acceptable solution.

Then again, maybe I'm missing the real issue here. Perhaps Psion pulled out of the consumer PDA market because, shock horror, no one really wants a clamshell palmtop with a keyboard. I do, but that's because I write for a living.

Programmers, too, love the Psion palmtops, but then that's because they also need a keyboard to enter their code. Eliminate these two niche markets and you're left with the general public who have clearly voted with their wallets for Palm-style devices.

So, if the Palm form factor is the ideal PDA for mass consumption, why is Palm the company, and indeed its major licensee, Handspring, suffering from losses? Is it because products like the Compaq iPAQ have overtaken them in functionality and ultimate desirability?

Whatever the reason, you've got to hand it to Microsoft. I know it's the done thing to knock the company, but 10 out of 10 for effort on the PDA front. While Psion and Palm fans laughed at Windows CE version 1, Microsoft was hard at work on version 2.

It's now getting it right with version 3 and has its successor poised for launch. While the competition effectively stood still, Microsoft plugged away and appears to have won the war - in the corporate market anyway.

So why are PDA sales down overall? Why are they miles from mobile phones in popularity? How can a horrible phone keypad have become the most popular way to send text-based messages, when there are miniature Qwerty keyboards or clever pen-based languages around? Obviously, there is some compelling reason to use a mobile phone for SMS, as almost one billion messages were sent in the UK during January alone.

It's easy to overlook the obvious: the reason that two thirds of the UK population use a mobile phone is that it offers the functionality people actually want at a price they're willing to pay.

For PDAs to be used by everyone, I believe they also need to be permanently connected to compelling services and subsidised by them. Only then can they be mass produced and effectively given away like phones.

This is where Microsoft's .Net rented services and GPRS/third-generation (3G) always-on mobile technologies could find a perfect partnership, as long as GPRS access points are provided for anything other than Wap and that 3G networks end up getting built, of course.

Then again, maybe the general public isn't in any hurry to access electronic scheduling and clever applications on the move. Horrifying as it seems to technology enthusiasts, perhaps the latest breed of mobile phones are sufficiently powerful and even hybrid smart phones will be snubbed.

Like dedicated games consoles in the 1980s, maybe PDAs have become unfashionable and will only return when the market's ready for them. At least 3G should be operational by then.

It's definitely a tough time for PDAs right now, with all manner of devices vying to deliver information and messaging, at home and on the move.

Ultimately, no one truly knows which information appliance will triumph in the mass market, but Psion's move has made me believe that its unconnected consumer PDAs were a solution looking for a problem. Hardcore devotees will miss them, but I'm not sure how many others will.

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