The past decade has seen a dramatic shift in the mobile world and in only 10 years we have jumped from the Palm IIIc to the iPhone 3GS which marks an unscalable improvement in what mobile users can do when out and about. However, the core uses for mobile technology has changed little in that time and many people are still roaming the streets with technology which was at the top of the game at the start of the decade just past.
2000
In the year 2000 a significant numbers of PDAs were released and without doubt Palm OS was king of the hill, especially in the US. Sony entered the Palm OS market with the PEG-S300 and S500C and offered little notice of what was to follow. Palm still ruled the roost and the release of the IIIc in February 2000 was seen as a big leap forward despite its clunky design and mere 20Mhz processor. Palm also released the IIIxe and VIIx which were run of the mill devices supplementing an already diverse range of PDAs which were improving little by little every 6 months. The Palm m100 was supposed to bring PDA ownership to the masses, but failed to do so thanks to its tiny screen and the fact that the Palm V form factor was much nicer to hold and to look at.
RIM was at the point where not many people knew what it did and devices like the 950 4MB and 857 8MB were without doubt designed for communicating at a very basic level and little else. They were ahead of their time and failed to set the world alight, but as we all know things change and technology sometimes catches up with the hardware and creates success.
Psion was still plodding along and released the Psion Series 7, netBook and Revo Plus, but this was to be its last year of significant releases. All of these devices are still surprisingly common today and many would argue, including me, that the Series 7 form factor has never been beaten.
The iPAQ range from Compaq was starting to dominate large sectors of the market and for those that required superior hardware and the ability to do all sorts of things with a pocketable device, this was the range to go for. HP released the 545 which was a revelation in an industry previously dogged by inferior Microsoft powered products which were unreliable and difficult to use. It seemed at the time as though Palm finally had a serious competitor, but little did it know that the competition would come from within.
With Psion still manufacturing PDAs, the word Symbian had not entered the consciousness yet and PDAs were without doubt still a niche device with only the Palm V starting to be seen in large numbers.
Most significant device of 2000: HP Jornada 545
2001
2001 was not the most exciting year in the history of PDAs, but some notable devices were released which would herald a major shift in the market going forward. Psion limped on with the release of the Psion 5MX Pro which was identical to the original 5MX apart from doubling the RAM to 32MB and increasing the ROM from 10MB to 16MB. No one in the history of 5MX ownership ever had a problem with the power under the hood in the original 5MX so this was a curious choice.
Palm released the hugely successful m500 and m505 which took the Palm V form factor and included expandable memory and a colour screen (m505 only). I remember well my time with the m505 and was amazed at the amount of apps and data I could carry with me and at the time it was probably the best PDA available. Handspring offered an alternative to the Palm branded devices and the Visor Pro was designed to take a slice of the professional market. The HandEra 330 took most of the plaudits though by offering a 240 x 320 pixel screen and this was regarded by most as the device for the serious PDA user. The Handspring Visor Edge was little more than a nice looking Palm m505 with an expansion system which went against the sleekness of the overall design. Handspring always struggled to be seen as anything other than a subsection of Palm and ultimately the writing was always on the wall.
Sony continued to release Palm OS powered PDAs and the N760C was the pinnacle of its creations so far. The 320 x 320 colour screen was a revolution in Palm circles and the legendary build quality and audio enhancements made it feel like a breath of fresh air and completely unique in the otherwise boring Palm OS segment of the market. On a personal note, I started Clie World a week after purchasing an N760C and it has evolved ever since. Sony gave Palm a royal kick up the backside and it is doubtless that without Sony, Palm may have died a long time ago.
Compaq continued to develop the iPAQ range of Pocket PC powered PDAs and Toshiba also entered the fold in a bigger way with the Genio e550. As the number of Pocket PC manufacturers started to increase, there were many who felt that Microsoft would ultimately dominate the PDA market and were it not for the huge fragmentation that occurred because of so many manufacturers this could well have happened. Microsoft has been close to conquering the PDA and smartphone market on many occasions, but never stepped up enough at the right time to win outright.
In June the Nokia 9210 Communicator appeared with a sleek (at the time) form factor and a look that made the Nokia 9000 from 3 years earlier look like something from a previous generation. Nokia was starting to build some momentum in this area and without doubt the promise was there to one day dominate this area.
2001 was a year in which Sony kicked Palm hard and in which the Pocket PC market started to grow as a very fast pace, but it was merely offering us a glimpse of what was to follow.
Most significant device of 2001: Sony Clie N760C
2002
In 2002 Palm forgot about Sony and released the m515 in March which had double the memory of the m505 and only a 160 x 160 pixel screen. Only 2 months later Sony released the groundbreaking NR70V which included a unique swivel screen, a 480 x 320 pixel display, hardware thumb keyboard and a previously unheard of camera function at a frightening 0.1 Megapixels. It was remarkably different and exciting at the time and made every other device look like a backwater production with no inspiration behind it. Palm only responded in November with the Tungsten T which still outsold the NR70V quite easily- go figure. In the same year Sony went mad and released the S360, T615C, T665C, SJ20, SJ30 and the NX70V which was the update to the NR70 with Memory Stick Pro and Compact Flash expansion plus a 0.3 Megapixel camera. In the meantime Handspring was knocking out smartphones like the Treo 300 which could easily be seen as the first mass market PDAs to include mobile phone technology. The designs were quirky, but not so dissimilar from BlackBerry’s of today as to make us wonder why they did not succeed in a much bigger way. Again it is a case of the hardware being ahead of the technology it needs to drive it.
RIM was quietly working on updated devices and the 5810 and 6720 offered us a glimpse of what was to follow. It was still very much in the business sector though and not well known outside of the purchasing departments of major corporations.
A succession of Pocket PC powered devices hit the market and Fujitsu-Siemens, Qtek (HTC), Dell, HP, Compaq and many others all saw Microsoft’s OS as the way forward. The confusion that reigned in the buying public’s minds meant that ultimately this plan was not going to work because they had no idea what to buy and each manufacturer was taking some of the profits away from the others so it was never worthwhile financially.
Nokia released the 9290 Communicator and this again sold quite well to business people, but the size would always be an issue to most. 2002 saw a crazy number of PDAs and early smartphones released and companies like Sony felt that releasing more devices would gain them a bigger share of the market, but something went awry in the marketing departments and they never took hold in the way that Palm did at the time. What followed was a year which change the PDA and smartphone market forever…
Most significant device of 2002: Handspring Treo 180
> Sony gave Palm a royal kick up the backside and it is doubtless that without Sony, Palm may have died a long time ago.
It seems that old prejudices die hard.
How is that prejudice? It is true for a start.
Unbelievable that Palm’s Tungsten still outsold Sonys NX70 when it had better resolution, better expansion options, better hardware and better build quality. This device still works flawless until today, despite being used everyday.
And Palm had a big market share, if it wasn’t the leader in this area, but still theire devices were boring, uninspiring and showed no effort of evolvement. If it wasn’t for the likes of Sony and Handspring, then Palm would have been died for sure!
People were angry about the models at that time lacking wifi, lacking multimedia features, lacking HiRes+.
But yeah, that is all ‘prejudice’.
Very nice retospective piece Shaun. I agree with you regarding SONY’s influence on the PDA/Handheld market. I can only imagine where we’d be if SONY had decided to stay in the game. They had the potential to do what APPLE did later on with the iPod, iPhone, and iTouch. I would dare say an iSlate might have even been in the offing!?? Too bad.
I still consider the iPhone to be the next incarnation of the CLIE PDA series from Sony, not a next step from Palm/Handspring, RIM, or others.
Palm had the name and track-record in the business sector – people were purchasing the Tungsten because of the name. Period. Sony’s models beat ALL Palm offerings hands down. That is not prejudice – just look at the T and N series machines and compare feature-by-feature to comparable Palm offerings. Trust me – I certainly did, as I was purchasing during that time.
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It seems that my little comment about prejudices has touched a nerve.
Before I address this, let me say that I recently purchased a reburbished m515. This is a reaction to my disappointment with all the devices I have owned over the last 5 or 6 years. To put it briefly, I was sick of all the senseless bells and whistles introduced to PDAs by Sony and others. I realised that I have no need for a device which takes second rate photos; I have no need for a device to play music through tiny little earbuds; I have no need for a device which has WiFi or GPS or 3G etc, etc, etc. By contrast, the m515 does everything I want and it does it all rather well.
When I look back to some of the so-called ‘breakthrough’ CLIE devices, all I see is a company (Sony) adding all sorts of questionable ‘features’ in an attempt to differentiate itself from the market leader (Palm). Does a swivel screen help me juggle my appointments? No, of course not. Same goes with 320 x 320 pixel displays and all the other ‘features’ that Sony included in their devices.
Palm reacted to Sony’s folly by copying it. Do you remember the dreadful Tungsten T line? It was not until the Tungsten E that they were able to get back on track (ie, devices which are focused on helping people manage their busy lives). But by then, the market was shifting, and Palm, weakened as they were by various distractions, did not have the resources to adapt adequately. But I’m disgressing.
The bottom line is simply this: CLIE devices were over-hyped compromises. Where they PDAs trying to be cameras? Or were they walkmans trying to be PDAs? They were neither fish nor foul, if you ask me. Looked at as simply a PDA, the typical CLIE included ‘features’ which offered little real utility for the user. These ‘features’ were added merely to give the marketing people something to prattle on about.
I’m sure that the tech buffs will be aghast at that last statement, but let’s keep this in perspective: Palm created a market which generated decent profit margins. Sony tried to muscle in. Sony threw some money at it for a few years, but they gave up when they decided that had little to show for all their efforts.
Of course, the CLIE advocates can’t accept that they backed the wrong horse – they continue to go on and on about all the terrific ‘features’ of the CLIE devices – but those people don’t seem able to realise that Sony simply failed in what they set out to achieve.
It’s yet another example of prejudice clouding one’s view of reality.
“It’s yet another example of prejudice clouding one’s view of reality.”
Informative comment Sp1got and I can see where you are coming from. However, to use the word predudice is maybe the problem- I think of it as me personally having a preference for the Clie range when they came out and not having a predudice against Palm PDAs.
“Does a swivel screen help me juggle my appointments? No, of course not. Same goes with 320 x 320 pixel displays and all the other ‘features’ that Sony included in their devices. ”
A hi-res screen makes a lot of difference compared to a 160×160 screen from a practical point of view.
“The bottom line is simply this: CLIE devices were over-hyped compromises. Where they PDAs trying to be cameras? Or were they walkmans trying to be PDAs? They were neither fish nor foul, if you ask me.”
Sorry, but that is completely wrong. They were Palm OS PDAs which kept the core OS and which worked identically to Palm branded PDAs. Yes, they had questionable cameras and other bits which you may not have liked, but they were very similar in price to Palm branded handsets and were built very well. What’s wrong with having extras which do not intrude on the PDA side?
“Looked at as simply a PDA, the typical CLIE included ‘features’ which offered little real utility for the user.”
Sony never wanted to build simply a PDA and in my opinion did move Palm along a bit. No smartphone today is a simple PDA and I still believe Sony had something to do with that. I agree Sony failed miserably and could have done more, but to suggest that “CLIE advocates can’t accept that they backed the wrong horse – they continue to go on and on about all the terrific ‘features’ of the CLIE devices – but those people don’t seem able to realise that Sony simply failed in what they set out to achieve” sounds more like predudice to me than anything else written so far.
After all of that I will drag your thoughts to the front page (without mine atched:)) to see what others think. Makes for a great debate.
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