Tuesday, June 01, 2004

Sony Exits Handheld Market

Sony today announced that they are exiting the PDA market. Off the top of my head I believe they are doing so for the following reasons:

1) With phones like the Treo 600 showing flying off the shelves the PDA market itself will probably decline over the next few years as "smartphones" begin to do a better job of converging PDA functionality with a cell phone.

2) While PDAs were once considered potential "laptop killers", they now seem to be morphing into smartphones. A new breed of potential "laptop killers" called Ultra Portable Computers (See oQo for an example) is emerging and Sony may be gearing up for this market.

3) The company might be ditching all "Laptop killer" markets to refocus on their struggling core businesses, like TVs and portable audio. (See all my previous posts about how Samsung will pass Sony in the coming years)

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