Dell’s Q1 '06 shipments of PDAs drop by nearly 34% due to the prevalence of new Smartphones that do away with the need of separate bulky PDAs. It seems the overall market for PDAs has been on
the decline as far back as Q2 of 2005 and shrank by 19% in Q1 '06.
DigiTimes reports that Dell has stopped its PDA development altogether and has diverted the funding to its notebook division. Dell’s last all-new model was introduced in 2004 in the form of the Windows Mobile 2003 based Axim X50 series which my wife has one of it. The company then released a minor update in the form of the Axim X51 series which basically added the Windows Mobile 2005 operating system.
According to the sources, Dell's TDC switched all PDA-related R&D resources to the notebook segment in the middle of 2005, following the company's plan of reducing the number of its R&D staff at its handheld device division at the end of 2004. Dell has not announced new PDAs for almost a year and PDA products that it currently offers are old models that were introduced in 2004, indicated the sources. In addition, the PC vendor has not shown any moves in the PDA phone and GPS-enable PDA segments, the sources noted.
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