PDAs suffer as phones get smarter

The battle lines are being drawn between the personal digital assistant (PDA) and the smart phone.

Traditionally PDAs have led the way, with Palm and Microsoft fighting for dominance.

Palm ruled in the early days with its revolutionary Palm operating system, now in version 5.2. However, Microsoft has been fighting back with products from PC manufacturers like Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Toshiba.

Because these Microsoft products look and feel like a Microsoft PC, with the familiar icons and cut-down versions of common applications, Microsoft has recently taken over the top spot from Palm.

But while the two PDA giants have been battling, they've had their thunder stolen by the smart phone makers.

As the two markets converge, with phones gaining PDA features, Nokia has emerged as a new powerhouse. PDA market share is falling to the mighty cellphone as consumers opt for one device instead of two.

A sure sign of the smart phone's rise is Microsoft's decision to build an operating system for cellphones to compete with its own PDA offerings.