Dataquest Explains Newton and the PDA Revolution
SAN JOSE, Calif. — July 30, 1993 — The personal digital assistant (PDA) revolution will get a boost with the unveiling of Apple's Newton product on Monday, August 2.
Whether or not Newton is well received by users, the PDA craze is real. Products like Apple's Newton are the next step toward having the power of a computer in a carry-everywhere device. Dataquest expects shipments of PDAs in the United States to reach 70,000 units in 1993 and surpass 3 million units in 1997.
"Some would like to believe the PDA revolution arose because of John Sculley, but there's really a fundamental market need that transcends even the vision of Mr. Sculley," said J. Gerry Purdy, Ph.D., Dataquest's vice president and chief analyst of mobile computing. "PDAs represent a ray of hope, a light at the end of the personal information tunnel."
PDAs have the potential of replacing the various popular paper-based daily organizers on the market. With PDAs, users are able to schedule, write notes, and plan on a personal device, in addition to being able to send and receive messages using wireless communications. Paper-based daily organizers, pagers, and message machines all have the potential of being replaced by PDAs.
Dataquest believes that products like Newton and Casio's Zoomer will have a more immediate effect on the palmtop and organizer markets.
"The palmtop and organizer markets will start fade away as their cramped keyboards and limited message ability become obsolete, compared with the pen-based PDAs," said Purdy.
While Newton and Zoomer have sent mobile computing on the right path, they are merely prototypes for the way people will be communicating in the next 10 years. Future PDAs will have color, speech recognition, speech synthesis, compact disc quality sound, video capability, excellent handwriting recognition, and worldwide wireless connectivity.
"Remember what portable computers were like 10 years ago? Today's PDA products will pale in comparison to the PDAs of the year 2003," said Purdy. "It is conceivable that personal communications are on the verge of a paradigm shift of a dimension not seen since the introduction of the telephone."
Newton is a step in the right direction, but Dataquest offers Apple the following recommendations to improve value for the end user:
— Support flash cards based on IDE technology, like that provided by SunDisk. Currently, Newton uses Intel flash file system technology. Other mobile computing products such as HP 100LX, OmniBook 300, ThinkPad line, and Zoomer support SunDisk flash cards. The availability of SunDisk flash cards will provide Apple customers with a way to easily share data with other, non-Newton devices.
— Develop a combination flash memory and communications card. Newton could benefit from a PC card that allows users to store applications and data in the flash and have access to communications in a single PCMCIA socket.
— Bundle a handwriting word processor such as InkWriter by aha! with Newton. There are many times that users take notes and simply need handwritten graphics as a reminder.
— Develop a Newton application desktop player for both Macintosh and PCs. A generic player that allows third-party applications to be backed up, viewed, and updated on the Macintosh and the PC would be a benefit for users.
Dataquest Inc. headquartered in San Jose, is a 22-year-old global market research and consulting firm serving the high-technology and financial communities. The company provides worldwide market coverage on the semiconductor, computer systems and peripherals, communications, document management, software, and services sectors of the information technology industry. Dataquest is an international company of The Dun & Bradstreet Corp.
CONTACT:
Dataquest, San Jose
Paul Wheaton, 408/437-8245