I know laptops, and you, PDA, are no laptop

Thirteen grand. I’m looking at the quote, and it clearly says $13,000 — not including tax and shipping. Nor including all the consulting work I’m going to have to charge this guy for integration. Is this for a new corporate delivery van? For a new server or document image repository? Something, anything with a direct benefit to my client’s bottom line? Nope. It’s for twenty PDAs.

Hewlett-Packard just released pre-production versions of its newest line of iPaqs  to the usual magazine review outlets, some happy executive noodlehead read them and started drooling, and now this company has decided to move all-in. They call it “enabling” anyone who does or might travel with the convenience of PDA technology. Well let’s take a look at that, shall we? Oh yeah, it’s rant time.

What’s so convenient about PDAs, even the newest ones? I still don’t get this. It’s another annoying box you have to carry around and make sure not to lose. Only it fits in your pocket, so it’s exactly what you will lose. It doesn’t hold anything new, but only provides a more convenient way of accessing information already contained on your laptop. Much of that is sensitive and private data that I, the harried IT worker, now need to find a way to protect in case your Prada-wearing booty gets hacked or you simply lose the device.

And “convenient” simply refers to the fact that you don’t have to sit through a laptop’s boot time. I know of no executive with any real use for PCs who can go on a trip carrying only a PDA. The laptop is always there. A PDA just means he or she can leave it in the hotel or at his or her temporary desk at the branch office instead of carrying it around.

Meanwhile, can a PDA really take the place of laptop? Not in my world. Can you run Visio or a sexy PowerPoint off your PDA? Can you open a 5MB Excel workbook loaded with macros and formulas and do some real work instead of simply gouging your eyes out at the small screen space? Nope, nope, and just a little more nope. You need a mobile PC for these sorts of tasks, and PDAs aren’t it. So to increase sales, PDA makers are tacking on anything small and easy to make the little kumquats more appealing. But how good or even useful are these new features?

The cameras are second rate, at best. And while PDAs can get e-mails, they can’t really store them. Not my inbox, anyway, and that’s for sure. That means I’ve either got to make sure all my accounts are off IMAP servers or go through a heck of rigmarole keeping three devices synced: laptop, desktop, and PDA. That alone requires more organizational effort than a PDA is worth.

Plus, who wants to reply to e-mails with one of these? Granted, I’m probably a bit more verbose in my writing than the average suit, but those things are a grand pain to use for any kind of typing. And if you drag around a keyboard, you might just as well drag around an ultra-light notebook. Same basic displacement, heck of a lot more functionality.

GPS systems? Nintendo games? Why are these features on devices for corporate users? If a corporate application requires GPS functionality, my experience with PDA-based systems says they’re simply not the way to go right now.

What do I want out of a PDA? Almost nothing that my current cell phone can’t handle. A sync with my Outlook contact database and my Outlook schedule. That’s it. I’m happy. I don’t need to text message, because it’s already a phone! If I want to send you a message, I simply call. Want to make me really happy? Add a high-quality audio jack and let me record playlists onto SD (Secure Digital) cards. Now I’ve got a phone, all the digital assistance I need, and an MP3 player for those few moments of downtime. Just don’t make it the size of two decks of playing cards; that clamshell format is perfect. Hear me, Motorola?

The only saving grace of a PDA in Oliver’s Corporate America is the vertical application: the homegrown inventory application that requires a small checklist and 802.11b access back to a big database. The XML e-form from which roving maintenance crews can relay a customer’s digital signature back to the home accounting app. The small, customized medical chart required to keep track of all patients at a medium-sized medical office with decent wireless encryption to keep the HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) auditors happy. This is where PDAs and super-fast development environments such as .Net truly shine. Heck, even us IT guys could be made to grin if we could use one of these things to connect to the serial console port on all our older routers. But we can’t, ’cause that’s not nearly as useful as taking a 320-by-240-pixel photograph of all the blinking red lights.

You can make PDAs a valued part of a corporation’s bottom line. You just can’t do it with minicams, Lara Croft, or Manhattan street finders. A toy is a toy no matter how many buttons you stick on it. Tools aren’t typically sexy, nor are they easy to build. Tools take sweat. But only tools can help you make or save money. HP should know better.