Palm Still Dominates Despite Pressures

InformationWeek covers a new report from IDC that finds "the handheld device market continued its relentless downsizing in 2005." At the same time "one major investor in market leader Palm Inc. urged the company to consider putting itself on the block." IDC claimed "shipments decreased 18.2 percent from the like quarter in the previous year, while shipments for the full year dropped 16.7 percent to 7.5 million units."

David Linsalata at IDC said, "The handheld market has been in decline since 2001. The biggest problem is that there hasn't been a killer application." IDC ranked Palm the market leader with 45.6 percent market share followed by Hewlett-Packard's 20.8 percent. Dell was in the third position with 8 percent market share.

Ramon Llamas at IDC said, "New devices continue to come out from the market leaders, aimed at different user types and offered at different price points. With the addition of GPS solutions, multimedia capability, and Wi-Fi connectivity, handhelds offer additional value beyond just PIM for the users."

Linsalata noted that "handheld devices with PIM applications are beginning to experience some pressure from smart phones with rudimentary PIM features."