Is The Z, Archos Pma, Etc Dead? Options

[Cyberdoc1971]

I know some of this has been touched on in pother previous forums, but has the age of the Linux-powered pda (Zaurus/Archos PMA/Etc.) come to an end? This was in discussion especially when Sharp made the decision to discontinue the Zaurus line. I have also seen the decline in other PDA lines (Palm and Windows Mobile), with very little news of any new PDAs coming out(personally, the Follio is a sub-notebook, not a PDA).

I have seen other users Z's and other units starting to have problems, and lack of parts does not help. Like you I got into the mobile Linux when it started up, I was lucky recently to get my hands on an Archos PMA430, bit I have concerns that the PDA is about dead to make way for the converged device, which I am not too fond of. So people, what are your thoughts on this?

[amrein]

Is The Z, Archos Pma, Etc Dead?

Here is how I see it:

To still be alive, a PDA or PDAphone need to have customers, faithful customers, good press with good review and companies working on solutions arround it. It needs to evolve to meet customers expectations, press expectations and partners expectations.

- Customers buy the product, the accessories, the applications and they talk about it all around. The users are the one that make your company and product stay alive because they bring you the money.
- Press and reviews show how the product works. They show you how the device can be useful. They bring you news of the market and show you how to solve your every day needs. They even create new expectations on hardware and software.
- And to finish, companies bring you new software, new accessories, new services...
So, don't you think that the Z, the Linux Archos, (...) are just missing all of those points?

You buy a Zaurus. Are you happy with it? How are you using it? Are you happy with the software and the hardware list in the device or on the net? Is it easy to use? Will Joe six packs, your neighboring, be happy with it? If one of your answers is no, this market is in trouble. People who are not happy with this device won't talk about it. If you still want to promote it, will you really interest other people? ssh, apt-get, startx, "mv image-yoyo-1234.zaza /mnt/cfcard/image.img", reboot, kill sound-at-poweron, freeze, reboot, modprobe...? If they can't get it, they won't buy it and the company won't have the needed income to continue. You just loose because this is not a mass market but a to small one.
The press has similar expectation than advanced users. They also react like your Joe six packs. Even if they have advanced skills, they will think about their audience first. Mainly they want to have useful devices and want to report to Joe six packs (the one that bring them money) "This device is good to solve your issue. You need to buy it, it won't disappoint you". If you don't feed the press with good device hardware and good software solution, they won't publish good reviews and won't promote it at all. More than this, as they have their hands grafted on their Pc keyboard and are used to other devices, they will always have a nasty review about your device as long as your PDA keyboard is trying to mimic a full Pc keyboard for example, or if you don't have good synchronization solution, or good PIMs, .... They won't think a lot. They won't tell their readers "without this keyboard, you will need to type slowly with a stylus or mark you device with fingerprints"...
People expect good hardware upgrade and a lot of good and easy software and the Zaurus and other hardware and software expectations are not fulfilled since many years. There is no big market for companies to work on (no money to do if you prefer). There are no big news around the Zaurus either (software and hardware) nor a big user base.

And the result of all this? All those devices are dying!
Well, who should we blame?