Wireless convergence debate rages on - Comment - smart phones and personal digital assistants converge

Electronic News, July 22, 2002 by Bryan Coley

THE PAST YEAR HAS SEEN the launch of amazing new smart phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs) that each take on the other's traditional applications.

We now have wireless phones that have taken on the capabilities of PDAs, and PDAs that have subsumed many of the voice communications capabilities of mobile phones. Amid the hype surrounding these new product launches, some industry pundits have proclaimed that the handsets of the future eventually will become some sort of superphone/handheld computer/PDA.

But in the end, the marketplace is never nearly as neat and tidy as prognosticators might imagine. Rather than an inexorable quest for a one-size-fits-all super-phone, the fractious forces of the market no doubt will lead device manufacturers down a number of avenues in support of 2.5G and 30 applications. Many mobile devices will be capable of converged voice/data applications, but many will not. Instead, they will fulfill a perceived consumer need or perform a certain specialized function very well. Mobile device OEMs must be prepared to meet the challenge of a diverse and segmented market.

Over the last several years, the market for terminals first became polarized and then stratified. The market first polarized at the high and low ends of the spectrum. As more features and functions could be added to handsets, they were, and this made up the high-end. But to attract new subscribers, wireless carriers still wanted low-cost yet robust mobile phones. In fact, for the service provider offering free handsets to new subscribers, the lower the cost of the handset, the better off the service provider would be.

In the last two years though, the market has shown that it will splinter and stratify with several different layers or market segments. Some of the distinct segments that are emerging can be defined as:

* Data-centric devices--Evolving from the PDA, these advanced palmtop computers retain or even expand upon their computing capabilities, adding wireless data capabilities and, increasingly, cellular voice functions.

* Smart phones--Migrating from the cellular telephone segment of today's market, smart phones perform their voice communications functions quite effectively, but they also are equipped with larger display screens and wireless data connections.

* Fashion/Image phones--These devices use fashion techniques to appeal to several segments of consumers.

* Classic mobile phones--For users who are looking for a standard, workhorse mobile phone.

* Low-end phones--Service providers will continue to offer free phones with service contracts because they are effective at attracting first-time users and callers who want a cell phone primarily for peace-of-mind.

What is not known is what tomorrow may hold and the effects new applications will have on the size, shape and function of future terminal devices. Looking at examples from the computing space, some users will want all-in-one smart phones, as evidenced by the proliferation of super-functional laptops. Others may choose to use multiple devices that do fewer tasks very well. The large market share garnered by PDAs based on the Palm OS gives us a strong example of this mindset.

One thing is for certain: New technologies will be developed that will continue to alter the form factors and application mix in future devices, giving tomorrow's consumers far more choices than they've enjoyed to date. For example, short-range Bluetooth and WiFi communications are entering the mainstream, ushering in wireless personal communications and computing systems dispersed into multiple devices. Tomorrow's hot mobile device may be a belt-attached controller/gateway device, which could contain multiple connectivity options, linked to an ear-piece that communicates audio information. A display unit of some sort could be connected to the user's eyeglasses and a digital notepad for communicating visual data. And beyond these new applications, medical sensors could be utilized to monitor the person's heartbeat or other vital functions. In such a scenario the all-in-one terminal, often too big to be a phone and too small to be a PDA, could be become a collection of smart, yet thin, fashionable and low-cos t devices. The concept could appeal to mobile professionals and teenagers, the primary target for the ever-increasing replacement market.

Bryan Coley is the manager of OMAP3G applications, wireless terminals business unit at Texas Instruments Inc.