Why I Believe The PDA Won't Die
Last week, fellow BostonPocketPC.com’er and friend Steve Hughes posted his thoughts on a c|net article by Molly Wood entitled “Molly to handhelds: just die, already”. Steve and I have had this conversation for about as long as I’ve known him, and I have found myself addressing this issue since shortly after the birth of the “modern-day” PDAs in the mid-‘90s.
I believe that, as Steve says, Molly doesn’t get it. I also think that Steve does get it. The problem with Molly and so many others who follow and report on technology is their clearly myopic view of concepts and implementations. They view what they see before them today (the implementation) as the concept. These are two entirely different things.
The overarching technical concept of a PDA is to be a Personal Digital Assistant (yes – that is what the acronym stands for). How it is implemented evolves over time. Just look back at those cute little Casio and Sharp “digital organizers” of over a decade ago. They were PDAs, like it or not, based on the concept of a PDA. Ten years have passed, and we have seen the evolution of the technology concept of a PDA transform implementations over and over again. If I were to apply Molly’s myopic view of things to the marketplace in 1995, then the death of the OZ spelled the death of the PDA ;-)
Certainly, the technological implementations of PDAs will continue to evolve, with new features and functionalities. Does this mean that the converged device of the future cannot be a PDA, simply because it is not today’s perception? Of course not. The concept of a Personal Digital Assistant and its value in any of a number of use cases will always exist. How manufacturers and technology implement solutions to meet these needs may change, but as long as demand exists (and it certainly does) there will be solutions.
As an aside – when will the analysts (who do get paid to provide insight) finally actually research the devices they are reporting on when it comes to statistics. Molly (and everyone else, it sometimes seems) is basing their PDA “death knell” on declining sales of certain devices. On the other hand, they also report that sales of smartphones are on the rise. HELLO!?!?! Try crunching the numbers AND combining handheld PDAs and phone-based PDAs (which is what a Smartphone essentially is) and see what you get.
One last note – did I mention that how, based upon recent sales numbers, the home computer is destined to die? ;-)