Highlight:
While digital cameras are in little danger of being replaced by cell phones with integrated cameras, personal data assistants (PDAs) with media players have a better chance of superseding dedicated mo3 players such as the iPod, if they can just get more storage space. In John Carroll's posting on ZDnet's Between the Lines blog, he mentions his PDA was useless until WiFi technology was a little more developed, and now he uses it often, although not for music storage due to a small amount of storage space. PalmOne has noticed this unexplored niche, and has released a 4 GB, hard-drive based device to pick up the slack, and Dell has one scheduled for release in November. These new technologies could eventually put pressure on the dedicated music device market if they can match the 40-60 GB storage space provided by the iPod and its competitors.
Original source:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=1354
Summary:
* I've had a HP PocketPC device for about a year and a half now, ever since I bought it at the 2003 Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles.
* It basically served as an expensive doorstop for about six months, as I lacked a Wi-Fi network, and handhelds are only marginally useful (at least for me) in the absence of a Wi-Fi network.
* That's been rectified, so now I use it daily as a cheap and fast way to check e-mail and surf the Web without going through the trouble of booting up my laptop.
* I wanted to use it as a music player.
* Unfortunately, with just an SD port, the limiting factor is the size of SD storage cards.
* That made handhelds poor music playback devices, leaving dedicated players to fill the void.
* Apparently, the industry has awakened to that fact.
* PalmOne has a hard drive-based device slated for release May 18, and Dell has one planned for release in November.
* I don't think handhelds are going to displace dedicated music devices, any more than integrated cameras in cell phones will displace standalone digital cameras.
* Then again, there is more room for handhelds to push back against dedicated music devices than camera phones against digital cameras.
* Integrated cameras are oriented around the sending of MMS (picture messages), which means there isn't much incentive to provide hi-res camera capability.
* Handhelds, however, can act like programmable iPods, and can perform all the functions of a dedicated player and then some.
* Nokia sells better than Ericsson due to well-designed handsets, and iPods own the portable music market for the same reason.
* Task-specific devices will always appeal to someone who wants something that does a simple task extremely well.
* Still, I see a future for handheld as music player, one that will start to put pressure on the market for dedicated players.
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