What's the Palm PDA?

"My Palm and I go back over 3 years now and I find it hard to imagine a time when we were apart..." - sound familiar? With the numbers of these little gadgets to be found around the place these days, it seems difficult to believe that five years ago nobody had even heard of the concept, apart from Trekkies that is.

In the UK, popular handhelds trace their heritage back to the Psion 3a. Sure, there were devices before it, but the arrival of the Psion was a watershed in usability and affordability - suddenly here was a gadget that people could really get a handle on. In the US, things proceeded more slowly - while UK users were romping along with their Psions, various attempts were being made in the US such as the Apple Newton and the Zoomer, both of which ended in a state of non-success.

The basic, out-of-the-box Palm Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) is pretty straightforward. A square, scribble-sensitive screen, below which there is an area for typing and some soft keys. The Palm PDA doesn't have everything it needs out of the box. I'm typing this on a GoType! keyboard, for example (you didn't really think I could type this fast, did you). I have also added the following packages:

WordSmith - a word processor that supports multiple fonts
TG Postman - a freeware POP/SMTP email facility
AvantGo - an offline news reader
BrainForest - a hierarchical task list manager and "thought collector".
FlashPack - a backup package that exploits the Palm's spare Flash memory.
Cipher - a tool for encrypting clipboard information, handy for passwords and PINs
Clipper - a facility for copy/pasting large chunks of information between applications.

Quite a list, but maybe that's just me. So - why do I like my Palm? My colleague John put it down to critical mass, and it is true that for a while I was not sure of the usefulness of the device. I wasn't a first-time user of handheld devices, as previously I had owned a Psion. Even so, it took me time to build up sufficient reason to really exploit the power of the Palm. And so it was, a few months down the line, that I found the elusive "critical mass" and the device went from disposable to indispensable.

Overall, the Palm PDA meets a need that cannot be met with other devices. It integrates with laptop or desktop computers, enabling data, documents and email to be synchronised between the two. It is a general purpose computer, but a very small one with limited functionality - it cannot run CAD applications for example. However it meets a need, and it meets it very well thank you.

What's the Need for the Palm PDA?

It is difficult to place PDAs. They serve a useful purpose, they are light enough to be portable just about anywhere, they are functional enough to perform the right set of tasks without requiring fast processors or colour graphics. However they do not originate from the same mould as computers and other IT equipment. They are truly devices which have been built from the ground up to meet a specific need - portable access to information.

Corporations need PDAs, right or wrong? The answer is unclear. PDAs might satisfy the "Portable access to information" tag but they are also general purpose devices with many potential uses.

A problem faces is how to manage these devices as company assets. Sun refers to the "swarm of devices", Computer Associates have toolsets to manage them but do they need managing and can they be managed? There are divergences of opinion, between those who think that such items are disposable or (at the very least) non-corporate, and those who don't. Or something.

What's the Debate with the Palm PDA?

Good question. The arrival of handheld devices is one element of a complex net of convergence, with other pieces including the Web and wireless technologies. The debate concerns the concept of ubiquity - the Palm PDA is not "there", but it is indicative of a step along the way.

What's the Future of the Palm PDA?

For some reason, Palm retains its market presence despite being harangued at every step of the way by the market gorillas in the form of Microsoft and so on. Palm may be keeping market share, despite best efforts of its competitors (and some very good products, such as the Compaq iPaq). It is unlikely that Palm will hold onto its market for much longer, not because the competition will win but because the market will go away as PDAs merge with mobile phones to form a new category of smartphones. For these devices the jury is out but the days of the "information access device" are numbered.

Further Resources

Where else (again) but Slashdot, for wonderfully nerdy discussions of all things technical!

We like Pilot Gear as a starting point for all things Palm.