Pen-Based PDA Market on Death Bed

An anonymous reader writes "The traditional pen-based PDA market is destined to evaporate within the next four years, according to HP, and it will be focusing its handheld efforts on converged smart phone devices, such as its latest BlackBerry rivals unveiled this week -- the iPAQ rw6800 and the iPAQ hw6900." From the article: "This won't come as a surprise to many, as HP hasn't given its traditional pen-based product line a refresh since the launch of the iPAQ hx4700 towards the middle of 2004. It released the iPAQ rx1950 in September of last year, but this was very much an entry-level product and made few waves among the high-end, tech-savvy consumers that dominate the PDA segment."

Comments

The "Death of Form Factor" Myth

[Yst]

It surprises me how persistent predictions of this kind are, no matter how equally persistent their failures to fulfill themselves.

The "desktop replacement" will supplant the beige box as the home computer, any number of futurists have proclaimed over the years. Counting at least ten years since I heard that one pronounced widely for the first time, it doesn't seem to have done so.

Or the tablet PC and, years earlier, the HPC will supplant the laptop. Still waiting on that one, but no especially strong signs at present.

The fact of that matter is, varying form factors serve their varying purposes, and they will continue to. A 1.8" wide screen is not a 2.4" wide screen is not a 4" wide screen is not a 6" wide screen. And they serve their varying purposes.

This is just HP predicting that their R&D investments and chosen product lines will be the right once. And a great surprise that always is, when a company predicts that the technologies it decides to develop...are the ones it endorses. Who could have foreseen such a thing?