Fine, I guess people are totally bent on having these mobile functions on their phones and not on traditional PDA format. Heck, why not.

The market for handheld computers continued their decline, now reaching nine consecutive quarter of year-over-year decline, according to International Data Corp.

According to IDC’s Worldwide Handheld Qview report, worldwide shipments of handheld devices totaled just 1.5 million units in the first quarter of 2006, down 22.3 percent from the same quarter a year ago.

Adding features like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, expandable memory and integrated GPS solutions hasn’t stemmed the tide, and the reason for that is because most of these features can be found on mobile phones. In the end, consumers would rather carry one device, not two.

“The original PDAs had functionality that was interesting when there wasn’t an alternative, like a converged phone,” says Roger Kay, president of market research firm Endpoint Technologies Associates, in Boston, Mass. “But once you get into the converged phone market you don’t want to bother.” …. Source: Internet News

[tags]pda,handheld sales,nosedive,endpoint technologies associates[/tags]