IS THE PDA DEAD?... SONY PULLING OUT

Good thread from News.com on the PDA industry. As an early PDA user, from Palm to Handspring, I loved the convenience and functionality that my PDAs provided. Everything was novel and cool. Beaming contact info into another Palm to downloading new programs to the game modules. When I moved to Asia four years ago, I found out that within that part of the world PDAs barely made a dent, especially in the the countries I lived in or visited frequently (e.g. China/Hong Kong, South Korea).

I initially identified a few reasons from an eyeball perspective. There weren't as many professionals (e.g. consultants, bankers) on the go compared with the U.S. traveling from city to city. Also the flow of information traveled far more frequently between cellphones (i.e. voice and sms) and the PC (i.e. emails and chat) in Asia than the U.S. during those years. Related to this point, cellphones in Asia had far better functionality that provided some overlapping qualities PDAs had. As smartphones rapidly developed in Asia, the potential of the PDA market became more bleak. Now I doubt PDAs will ever take off in China or Korea.

I don't know about how PDAs are or will do in Europe or other markets. Anyone? But with cellphone technology and services finally catching up in the U.S., I assume the future for PDAs is very bleak now. A shrinking primary market with limited global growth in sight is not a happy future to gaze upon.