March 1, 2002 / News Archives
HP's First WDA Grabs Market Attention
By Seng Li Peng
There is certainly an air of excitement when it comes to new wireless gadgets, whether it is in the west or east.
On personal digital assistants (PDAs) alone, total shipments grew 17 percent in 2001, with eight million units shipped during the year, according to a recent report by Cahners In-Stat Group. The Group anticipates that the market for PDAs should continue to experience double-digit growth over the next few years, peaking at 30 percent in 2004.
On mobile phones alone, there are about 550 million subscribers in the world currently. By 2005, it is estimated that the figure will grow to a staggering 1.2 billion and beyond.
Capitalizing on the exponential growth in the PDA and mobile phone market, HP has came up with its very first WDA - the Jornada 968 - a full-color integrated PDA and phone combination based on Microsoft's Pocket PC Phone Edition. This product will also help expand its Jornada family line of wireless products that include the 540 and 560 series PDAs and 700 series of handheld devices.
Although the company has not ruled out that the product will be CDMA (code-division multiple access - used in the countries such as the US) compatible one day, it's main target markets right now are Europe and parts of Asia that are on the GSM (Global System for Mobile communication) or 2G and GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) or 2.5G network.
Countries such as Japan and Korea will not be able to utilize the product as they are already on the 3G networks.
Like the Jornada 560, the 968 is designed and manufactured in Singapore and the first two countries that have been singled out as the initial launch pads are Singapore and Australia.
The lightweight product, weighing 194 gram and measuring 137 x 77.8 x 16.7 mm, is similar in design to that of Jornada 560 series except that it is slightly longer. The device is also equipped with entertainment features such as an MP3 player, games and a streaming video player and comes with a 64MB Ram, up-gradable to 128MB Ram for customers who want higher storage space.
It's removable and rechargeable Li-Polymer battery pack allows up to 150 to 180 minutes of talk time.
Shipment of the products is expected to begin in June this year and the company estimates that about 500,000 units of the 968 product will be manufactured for the region by the end of the year.
HP hopes to market the product not only to consumers but to the various vertical markets and government sectors as well.
Earlier, the Singapore Police Force (SPF) has embarked on a pilot project called mPOD where officers will be equipped with the portable device (connected to backend databases of SPF) to conduct screening of persons and vehicles on the beat, without the need to relay the requests to the Operations Room, thereby achieving faster screening results and freeing the latter to concentrate on call-handling and coordinating major incidents.
Police officers will also be able to obtain instantaneous and up-to-date critical operational information at their fingertips, which will enable them to make informed operational decisions and increase their productivity through providing better one-stop service to the public.
As demonstrated in the SPF, a WDA can come in handy. Although the concept of WDA is still relatively new, its potential in the market is excellent because it offers users a two-in-one device to the end user. This means that they no longer have to handle a PDA and a mobile phone separately.
The Jornada 928 was first introduced in GSM World Congress held in Cannes on 19 February and again in a press conference in Singapore on 28 February 2002.
Other WDA products on the market include the SPH-1300 from Samsung and Palm VII.
AI
