Gartner Study Shows Windows Mobile Pushing Record High PDA Sales

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9002243' target='_blank'>http://www.computerworld.com/action...ticleId=9002243</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Wireless networking providers pushed sales of PDAs (personal digital assistants) to a record high, up 2.7% from last year to 3.7 million units shipped in the second quarter... RIM saw its market share fall just 1.1%, but some competitors had steep declines, such as Palm's drop of 26.7%, HP's drop of 15.1% and Nokia's drop of 40.5%. In contrast, Mio Technology enjoyed a 65.4% rise in market share... The other winner in this fast-changing market was Microsoft Corp., whose Windows Mobile operating system accounted for 54.2% of PDA platforms sold in the second quarter, compared to 22.5% with the RIM operating system and 13.4% with the Palm OS."</i><br /><br />The study is not quite as holistic as some might like as it does not include Smartphone devices (e.g. Palm Treo 700w, RIM Blackberry 71xx), but it paints an interesting picture nonetheless. Mio's ascent is mostly attributed to their GPS integration, which seems to be a major factor in keeping the PDA market alive. To no one's surprise though, Windows Mobile is starting to establish a pretty dominant position with regards to new PDA sales.

[Ed Hansberry]

I am sick to death of these ridiculous studies that arbitrarily leave out the Treo and other devices just because they claim to be a smartphone. they ought to do these based on the OS.

[ADBrown]

I have to say, even though it is sometimes annoying, there is a case for breaking it down by devices that are primarily one-handed like the Treo, and ones which are two-handed, like the Wizard/Apache/Hermes, etcetera. The latter are primarily data devices, with phone functionality secondary, while Treo-type devices are a bit more mixed.

Doing it by OS probably would be better, but that would require market research companies to acknowledge that smartphones, wireless handhelds, and classic handhelds are all more or less the same thing, regardless of what connectivity they have. That's something that they are as yet unable or unwilling to do.

[Brad Adrian]

I am sick to death of these ridiculous studies that arbitrarily leave out the Treo and other devices just because they claim to be a smartphone. they ought to do these based on the OS.
I would agree with you, Ed; that's the best way to understand exactly which companies are contributing to which parts of the market. The biggest problem, as I'm sure you've seen, is that there are few, if any, agreed-upon definitions for device types (i.e., what makes a smartphone a smartphone).