DELL to enter the PDA market: Will they kill the competition?

kecksy

<a href="http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,105759,00.asp"; target="_blank">http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,105759,00.asp</a>;



I don't know. Personally I think PocketPC is dead. The latest devices are more like miniature PCs than digital organizers. Palm maintains is dominance because its PDAs are simpler and easier to use. No one wants Word on a PDA. PDAs are for taking notes and looking up contacts, not for writing papers or watching movies. If I wanted to do these things on the road, I'd rather do them on a laptop with a full sized screen and keyboard.



Since they're not offering anything new, DELL will likely consolidate the PocketPC market and do very little to Palm. DELL can't kill Palm because makes real PDAs. DELL will just be making really small Wintel machines.



Besides, I agree with many people that the future of the PDA is integration will Cell phones. Digital organizers are nice, but I would prefer not having to carry around an extra device that I could loose or have stolen. New cell phones have the ability to read email and send text messages, so I don't need my Palm for that anymore. It would be great if I could take notes and store contact information too, and devices like the Danger Sidekick are a step in the right direction. They just need to become smaller.



DELL can make great PocketPCs, but I don't think many people will want a PocketPC or a Palm if Cell Phones can double as digital assistants.

torifile

DELL? Don't you mean Dell?



Anyway, the PDA market is pretty much dead in the water until someone can innovate around the limitations (*ahem*Apple*ahem*). Until then, nothing's going to change significantly.

patchouli

The new Dell PocketPC is ugly (from the leaked pics I've seen) and does not offer anything more than the existing competition. However, if they are priced better than the others, then they might do well.



For the earlier comment, PocketPCs ARE mini PCs, that's what they are supposed to be! The PocketPC is NOT dead as it's gaining share year after year. Palm is the one that is losing share. Now that the PocketPC and Palm devices are just about the same size, people are wondering what the palm advantage is. There are amazing PocketPCs coming out with 400MHz and 800MHz processors, ATI Video, 1GB Flash Cards and so on - in the palm of your hand.



I love my PocketPC. It's a great extension to my PC and can do anything my PC can (to a certain degree) but on the road without the bulk of a notebook. I had a couple of Palm devices in the past and I find the platform to be bit weak and limiting. If all you want to do is store some names and phone numbers, then a Palm is good for you. The only 'cool' Palm devices that can handle *some* multimedia out there are the Sony Clie's and they are not Mac compatible.

hmurchison

No I don't think Dell will become much of a player in PDA's. They may make some waves by pricing it lower but I don't think the PDA aficionado is going to sell his/her Palm/Handspring/Clie.

matsu

Hopefully someone will kill this pointless market, might as well be DELL.

johnny dangerously

Y'know, if this market is dead, why do I see thousands of customers at work, buying them up faster than M&Ms? Maybe they've reached the point where they're literally all the same, with *zero* innovation with new models (read: Palm Zire). Maybe that's the attraction for PC users; thousands of look-alike models with no differences, and the only thing you'll get next year is speed. Isn't it scary to think there's been no great strides, no quantum leaps, not even any *evolutionary* steps since Palms gained popularity in 1996-1999? Sheesh. I can remember another computer company who was in similar trouble about seven years ago....



Also, on this note, a discussion with a customer yesterday (after he asked my *real* opinion) led to me saying that of all the PDA vendors, the only one who seemed *not* to be making a last-ditch effort to try to save their company was Sony. And yesterday Sony invested $20 million in PalmSource (<a href="http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0210/08.sony.php"; target="_blank">Article</a>). Seems I might be right; Sony may (like Apple) see the future, and integrate its PDAs into its other digital devices.



Handspring? Don't look for them in a year's time. Palm? They'll survive, but only with major cutbacks and a refocus on software (i.e. PalmSource). As for the PocketPCs, well, I'm with Kecksy on this one; they have no appeal, no market. Who wants all the worst things about a notebook combined with an even-more-clunky version of Windows? I'd probably admit they're gaining marketshare, but look at it this way: if I'm pouring water out of two glasses at different rates, in a very short time, they'll *both* still be empty.



- Johnny Dangerously

klinux

[quote]Originally posted by hmurchison:

<strong>No I don't think Dell will become much of a player in PDA's. They may make some waves by pricing it lower but I don't think the PDA aficionado is going to sell his/her Palm/Handspring/Clie.</strong><hr></blockquote>



There's your problem: PDA aficionados do not use Palm or Handsprings (Clie maybe).



I love my PocketPC too! Only if they (or the Zaurus) synced to Macs.....

trailmaster308

I am a sys. admin for a large hospital in Louisiana. We have just placed an order for 200 iPaq's (now that beta testing is done) so that our doctors and nurse's can do bed side chart reviews of patients through our wireless access points wherever in the hospital. There are accessing our main charting application through a Citrix ICA connection to our RAS servers. We are a sister hospital of four other locations larger than us, 2000 plus users, all of which are/have been using (more devices than us) this so called "Dead" technology that has "limitations"....cute...real cute. Give me one limitation and I will be glad to give you step by step detailed instructions along with pictures of the so called "limitations". Being on the project board for future applications at our location and speaking frequently with other institutions I have noticed a "TREMENDOUS" growth of PocketPC's for remote tasks (802.11b) and will start beta testing with Tablets when our hardware vendor recieves the HP tablets in November. Just because your buddies at the coffee shop are not buying PocketPc's doesn't mean that large corporations aren't buying these things up like hot cakes and saving companies tons of money in the process.

bioflavonoid

Can someone show me where I could find pics? Thanx

trailmaster308

[quote]Originally posted by Bioflavonoid:

<strong>Can someone show me where I could find pics? Thanx</strong><hr></blockquote>



Pics of what?

bioflavonoid

[quote]Originally posted by trailmaster308:

<strong>



Pics of what?</strong><hr></blockquote>

Pics of the PDA, but I found them anyways:

<a href="http://www.ppczone.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid= 237" target="_blank">http://www.ppczone.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid= 237</a>

mrmister

trailmaster308: respectfully speaking, hospitals are a valuable niche market, but still a niche market. They were fast to adapt Palm tech, and they need fast devices with a lot of storage and networking because of the kind of intensive work (reference drug books, sending a lot of paperwork on the run with no time for an office) that they do.



I think PocketPCs are out of step with most of corporate America, but it's nice that they are available for those who need them.

matsu

Hospitals seem to be a good market for them, but also one with serious potential problems. Personally, I'd feel better if my doctor had a nice paper file to refer to. PDA's, while they provide a serious measure of convenience in that environment, also provide a new potential point of failure in the communications chain, (in fact a few points). So does paper, of course -- maybe it'll be harder for a dumb nurse or a lazy doctor to mis-read/print a decimal space when operating digitally. But nasty system based misdirections of information could happen aswell. I wonder what kind of safety protocols the hospitals have in place to deal with potential problems?

mrmister

I don't know, but since they've been widely implemented in many hospitals for a number of years (starting around 1999) it must not have gone catastrophically.

miami craig

Dude, your getting a P.O.S. <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />

splinemodel

All I want is something that performs like a piece of digital paper, and to my dismay, it doesn't exist. That's why I'm going to have to build it myself.

bioflavonoid

[quote]Originally posted by Splinemodel:

<strong>All I want is something that performs like a piece of digital paper, and to my dismay, it doesn't exist. That's why I'm going to have to build it myself. </strong><hr></blockquote>

Godspeed young Splinemodel...Godspeed...



[ 10-12-2002: Message edited by: Bioflavonoid ]</p>

serrano

The Dell PocketPC doesn't look so bad. A marked improvement over their towers.