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Gartner's PDA report confusing the market |
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Two weeks ago Gartner Dataquest sent out a press release announcing “Windows Mobile Devices Drove Worldwide PDA Market to 40 Percent Growth in First Quarter of 2007”. Interestingly, we also received a week before a “handheld device” market estimate from IDC announcing that the PDA market was declining 40%...
GPS Business News decided to investigate this topic, pertinent to the GPS market since the portable navigation market emerged from the PDA market and a lot of vendors are still developing for the Pocket PC platform.
Obviously these market research companies are not exactly using the same definition of “Personal Digital Assistant”. For IDC, “Handheld devices are pocket-sized, either pen or keypad-centric, and are capable of synchronizing with desktop or laptop computers. Handheld devices are designed to access and manage data including office documents, multimedia, and games. Handheld devices do not include telephony but may include wireless capabilities (like Bluetooth and WiFi) that enable Internet access and text communication. These devices feature evolved operating systems or applications environments such as the Palm OS, Windows Mobile Pocket PC, Linux, or other proprietary platforms with the ability to download, run applications, and store user data beyond PIM capabilities.”
According to Gartner: “Gartner Dataquest defines a PDA as a data-centric handheld computer weighing less than 1 pound that is primarily designed for use with both hands. These devices use an open-market OS supported by third-party applications that can be added into the device by end users. They offer instant-on/off capability and synchronization of files with a PC. A PDA may offer WAN support for voice, but these are data-first, voice-second devices. Examples include the RIM BlackBerry 8707v, HP iPAQ 69xx, Nokia E61, Motorola Q, T-Mobile Dash and Sidekick 3”.
“Smartphones offer all the attributes of a PDA, except that smartphones are voice-centric with data access as a secondary capability, and are designed for primarily one-handed operation. Examples include the Palm Treo 750v, RIM BlackBerry Pearl, Orange SPV C700, Nokia E60 and Sony Ericsson P990i”.
It is obvious that IDC and Gartner are not defining in the same way what are a handheld device/handheld computer. But the IDC definition is crystal clear: it includes every handheld without a phone capability; even if you might disagree, you understand what they are talking about, what is in and what is not. The Gartner definition is largely subjective because it is based on how many hands you use – or you are supposed to use - to operate the device and if you use it more as a data or a voice terminal. As market segmentation the Gartner definition is completely inefficient, because the ultimate goal of the vendors on this market is to blur the line Gartner is trying to draw, in making these devices usable with one or two hands, for email and voice calls.
PDA or PND?
But it gets even more interesting when reading the rest of the Gartner press release: “Mio Technology, the leading Microsoft licensee, shipped nearly 568,000 PDAs, all with integrated GPS capability. Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) accounted for 57 percent of Mio's shipments, driven by sales of the C510 and C250 car navigation devices into Southern European countries”.
At this level it was not only confusing, but also contradicting the definition given by Gartner itself, to have some of the Personal Navigation Devices from Mio included in this market estimates. Indeed, these devices (even if based on Windows CE) are not offering an open operating system, do not allow third party software installation and do not offer file synchronization with a PC - with the exception of safety camera location files.
GPS Business News contacted Gartner several times, but we are still waiting for an answer to our questions. This is a shame, because we were very excited to know why Todd Kort, principal research analyst in Gartner's Client Computing group - the author of this report – is including some PNDs into its calculation. By the way, Mr. Kort, in a car there is only one device “that is primarily designed for use with both hands”, this is the wheel.
Submitted Date: Jun 05, 2007
Source: GPS Business News
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