Friday, November 29, 2002
PDA? No way
Posted by Jason Dunn in "ARTICLE" @ 12:30 PM
Jack Kapica, a writer for the Globe & Mail (the Canadian Wall Street Journal), is a very brave man. This article on PDAs has some excellent points, and is worth the read.
"Personal digital assistants, the pompous name for handheld computers, were supposed to transform the way e-business is done. They haven't. What happened?
A scant 18 months ago, they were considered the hottest high-tech commodities on the market. Manufacturers were talking about selling them to "vertical markets," meaning enterprises that would issue PDAs to their employees, who would become more mobile (and presumably more productive) as a result. PDAs were supposed to take over from laptop computers. Employees would find them so easy to slip into their shirt pockets and to synchronize e-mail, addresses, appointments and other data that they were the natural inheritors of a glorious future of mobile business conducted by the always-on executive.
Today, PDA makers are locked in a fight to the death. Prices are being slashed, and new manufacturers are producing brighter, cheaper and more powerful products. And yet the future seems no more certain than it ever was for e-business enabled with PDAs."
There are a huge number of responses that are quite interesting to read.
"Personal digital assistants, the pompous name for handheld computers, were supposed to transform the way e-business is done. They haven't. What happened?
A scant 18 months ago, they were considered the hottest high-tech commodities on the market. Manufacturers were talking about selling them to "vertical markets," meaning enterprises that would issue PDAs to their employees, who would become more mobile (and presumably more productive) as a result. PDAs were supposed to take over from laptop computers. Employees would find them so easy to slip into their shirt pockets and to synchronize e-mail, addresses, appointments and other data that they were the natural inheritors of a glorious future of mobile business conducted by the always-on executive.
Today, PDA makers are locked in a fight to the death. Prices are being slashed, and new manufacturers are producing brighter, cheaper and more powerful products. And yet the future seems no more certain than it ever was for e-business enabled with PDAs."
There are a huge number of responses that are quite interesting to read.
