The Demise of the PDA

Workers who need mobile e-mail and calendaring are also opting for appliances like the still-successful Blackberry. These make sense for many, even though full-fledged PDAs are more flexible and powerful. Power means nothing if the user doesn't want it, need it or know how to use it.

If PDA vendors want a permanent place in the enterprise and with consumers for their standalone devices, they must do a 180 and keep things simple, play to established needs and make their devices a heck of a lot easier to use, like the Apple iPod. Otherwise, they may as well go in the other direction and embrace multifunction hybrid devices like the Treo 600.