G&M Article: Mass PDA use just a pipe dream for now

[kfluet]

http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/GAMArticleHTMLTemplate?tf=globetechnology/TGAM/NewsFullStory.html&cf=globetechnology/tech-config-neutral&slug=TWKAPI&date=20021114

I use my iPAQ every day, but the majority of my friends who have PDA's don't carry them any more, so I wonder if this article has a point.

What do you think?

[disconnected]

I think part of the problem is that the companies who make or sell PDAs are not quite sure who to market them to. I guess it might be easier to sell a thousand Pocket PCs to one business than to sell one each to a thousand consumers, but with some of the prices getting so low, I think it would be useful to try harder to appeal to consumers.

I myself am female (and not young), and, from what I understand, not a large segment of the female population has a Pocket PC. I can hardly imagine life without mine, and in some ways I think it should actually be easier to market them to women than to men. For one thing, stereotype or not, we really do like to buy things. We all carry purses, so it's not hard for us to find space for the Pocket PC, most of us carry address or appointment books (I don't have children, but women who do have very complicated schedules), as well as something to read and/or music to listen to. A Pocket PC performs all these functions, in most ways better than anything else, before you even add games or any other specialized apps.

Maybe if they started putting ads in Vogue and Good Housekeeping (does that still exist?) and Travel magazines, and made in-store displays a little more appealing, women might actually start buying them (I always feel a little silly in Borders and Barnes and Noble, pushing my way through the men to pick up some of those men's toys magazines with the half-dressed women on the cover, to find the articles on Pocket PCs.

[Pony99CA]

http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/GAMArticleHTMLTemplate?tf=globetechnology/TGAM/NewsFullStory.html&cf=globetechnology/tech-config-neutral&slug=TWKAPI&date=20021114

I use my iPAQ every day, but the majority of my friends who have PDA's don't carry them any more, so I wonder if this article has a point.

What do you think?
I'm not sure about their points about security. They claim it's easier to secure data on laptops than on PDAs. How many laptops used in corporations have encryption? At a couple of places I have worked, they actually had laptop theft problems, too.

Also, laptop theft is rampant at airports, but I haven't heard much about PDA theft. It's harder to steal a PDA because people don't have to set it down (except at security checkpoints) or stow it in an overhead bin. PDAs are easier to hide after they're stolen, of course, but it's harder for someone to target a PDA user than a laptop user. A PDA in a pocket or a holster is far less visible than a laptop in a case.

Steve

P.S. Please don't post long URLs. They screw up the board's text wrapping feature. Use the URL tags like this:


[url=http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/GAMArticleHTMLTemplate?tf=globetechnology/TGAM/NewsFullStory.html&cf=globetechnology/tech-config-neutral&slug=TWKAPI&date=20021114]Global Technology PDA article[/url]


which looks like this:

Global Technology PDA article (http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/GAMArticleHTMLTemplate?tf=globetechnology/TGAM/NewsFullStory.html&cf=globetechnology/tech-config-neutral&slug=TWKAPI&date=20021114)