Email powers record year for PDAs

RIM's BlackBerry device outsells the competition

Worldwide PDA shipments reached a record high of 14.9 million in 2005, according to analyst Gartner.

A 19 per cent increase on the previous year, the figure topped the last recorded high of 13.2 million PDAs shipped in 2001.

Gartner principal analyst Todd Kort says the surge in sales has mainly been caused by growing business interest in mobile email systems.

'It speeds decision-making among your senior executives. Wherever they happen to be, they can make decisions on issues quickly,' he said.

Having started out as a personal choice product, the PDA is increasingly becoming a business item, bought by corporations, says Kort .

'Part of it is their ability to allow data to be accessed on the spur of the moment. People finding PDAs are a good adjunct to a notebook computer,' he said.

'If I go on a two day business trip to attend a conference, I need to keep in touch with my email and don't really want to take my laptop along I just bring my PDA along, and it has all the functionality I need.'

BlackBerry maker Research in Motion came first among vendors with 2005 sales of three million.

'A lot of companies resist bringing in mobile devices IT staff cannot control,' said Kort.

'If someone forgets their Blackberry in the back of a cab, the IT people can send a signal out and quickly kill that device or wipe the data from it. Not many other handheld devices have that capability.'