They aren't targetting Zaurus users. They are targetting 'joe sixpack' - more of them around.
Really, if you need GB's of storage you don't need a pda, IMHO.
You're right, I don't need a PDA. Neither does Joe Sixpack nor anyone else with an average mobile phone. My middle-of-the-road Sony Ericsson T610 does a great job of managing my contacts and calendar and it syncs seamlessly (and wirelessly) with Outlook on my PC.
So if I'm going to be compelled to shell out a bunch of money for another device that I'm going to carry around everywhere, then it better do a whole lot more than my phone can. And as phone capabilities continue to grow, it continues to raise the bar for other handheld electronics.
Currently the three things that compel me (and most of the others on this forum) to carry the Zaurus are display, keyboard, and storage ... all things that the Olympus (and most other PDAs) are currently lacking. And it's the synergy between those elements that makes the whole greater than the sum of its parts. Lose any one and the value of the other two drops dramatically.
As I've said before, the market for traditional PDAs is dead. For Joe Sixpack, who is already carrying a phone and an iPod, a PDA is completely unnecessary. Today, any conventional PDA design is doomed to failure. Most people (myself included) won't carry three devices. So a handheld has to
completely replace the phone or the media player
and offer enough compelling additional capabilities to choose it over the more specialized (easier to use) device.
Now, in all fairness, I don't think Olympus is targeting Joe Sixpack. They appear to be targeting industrial use (much like Sharp's original plans for the SL-6000) hence the ruggedization. But if that is indeed their goal, they didn't specialize enough to compete with devices from folks like Symbol and Intermec. I think Sharp found that out the hard way with the 6000 and it's a lesson Olympus will quickly learn too.
