Farewell to PDA’s?
Do you own a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant)? I don’t, but have been thinking about it for some time. Yet technology seems to move faster than one can keep up in the 21st century. Ephraim Schwartz, editor at large at Infoworld writes that General Motors believes the time may be approaching for you to get rid of your PDA.
General Motors announced last week that it will partner with wireless carrier Nextel to use Nextel’s Motorola cell phones with data capabilities to market a field-force management application to its commercial truck fleet customers. The announcement casts a shadow over the future of handheld devices in the business marketplace.
By selecting a cellular phone, GM in essence said no to Palm, HP, and Microsoft.
IT departments should consider the reasoning behind GM’s decision before recommending a handheld solution of their own.
The technology includes GPS, Java, and push-to-talk, and in tandem with ease of use, it becomes hard to chose a handheld over a handset. Cell phones are also considerably cheaper than PDAs.
Can someone slow technology down for just a few minutes, please? (From: Roland Piquepaille’s Technology Trends)
May 30th, 2003 at 14:01
Until Telus or some other cell phone company can manage to get me cell coverage when I’m out here at the lake, no thanks, I’ll stick with my PDA. It runs anywhere I am, at the cost of a couple of AA batteries. Even internet here is abysmal — remember the bad old days of 28.8 K modem lines? That’s where I’m at. I don’t so much “surf” the net as “slodge”! –J