| Who Needs It? |
9 June 2003
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Palm to Buy Handspring
The personal digital assistant market is about to undergo a big change. Palm is going to buy Handspring (as one wag at the Financial Times put it, forming "Palmsprings"), and the two look better as an entity than one, so the stock may take off. Unfortunately, PDA sales are down so far that some technology gurus have begun to wonder if they are a tool whose time has come and gone.
The cell phone may be the device that kills the PDA as currently known. Not only can one talk into these things, but they take and send pictures, play games, and access e-mail and the internet. Add in their data management abilities thanks to the digital phone book they all have, and one wonders, "who needs a PDA?"
Leaving aside for a moment one's preference for the ultimate ramdon access database storage device (a notebook), the PDA is beginning to look like a has been. There are many die-hard fans, but the same is true of "audiophiles" who still use turntables and vacuum-tube amplifiers. The rest of the world has moved on.
What that means for "Palmsprings" is easy to discern. It must branch into communications, where the bones of so many firms lie bleaching in the sun, or look for a white knight to buy up the stock. Failure would mean bankruptcy. Readers have been warned.