In Search of the Perfect PDA

A marketing strategy that has developed into an axiom of the high-technology market targets new products at those who can not only afford them, but who are open-minded enough to try them: upwardly mobile young businessmen between the ages of 20 and 30. In Tokyo, a market known for its insatiable appetite for technology (and sky-high prices for that technology), advertising invariably rests upon the image of the young Tokyo businessman -- a person who is a success not only within the company, but in eve ryday life as well. This strategy has often been used in introducing Japanese consumers to the concept of the "personal information manager," or PIM, a form of denshi techou (electronic organizer). The recent success of the Zaurus 3000 (Sharp Electronics) , for example, was spurred by an advertising campaign featuring a young businessman surrounded by the scattered papers from his overturned briefcase. The leader for this campaign was, "Now, whose fault is it that you have no time?"

Another axiom of marketing strategy seems to be that if a concept captures the public's imagination, turn the concept into a buzzword and use it to describe any marginally applicable product. For instance, the popularization of fuzzy logic spawned fu zzy washers, fuzzy vacuum cleaners, and even fuzzy rice cookers. The concept of the personal digital assistant is no exception, and as the acronym PDA catches on, it is being applied to everything from pocket organizers to cellular communication terminals . Unfortunately, with the change in terminology from personal information management (PIM) tool to PDA, the subtle differences seemed to have been lost.

The PDA recipe

One trait common to the PIM and PDA concepts is portability. While this is an essential ingredient of the PDA recipe, other traits are necessary as well. The most important characteristic of a PDA is its ability to manage information. In Japan, this is a basis from which most PIM tools start, due mainly to their common lineage. According to a Sharp Electronics spokesman, while PIM tools in the US end up being smaller computers, in Japan the PIM tools are larger electronic organizers and word processors . Indeed, Japanese magazines such as Networks and Electronics Life define PDAs as bigger and better electronic organizers; their three criteria for making the grade are portability, ability to use a pen for input, and ability to transmit and receive data.

Most of the so-called "PDAs" on the Japanese market do a minimum of storing names and addresses, managing a calendar and taking care of scheduling, and keeping a To Do list. They often have a Japanese-English or kanji dictionary as well. However, the "assistant" in personal digital assistant implies that a PDA should do more than just store information -- it must actively help the user to manage that data. The best embodiment of this ideal is the Newton Intelligence object database (perhaps not surpr ising, since Apple coined the acronym PDA); if you access information through an application, the Newton assists by accessing other fields of that object. For example, if you enter a luncheon with Ms. Nakamura on Tuesday, the Newton might append her compa ny name and telephone number by the entry -- data that the Newton took from its address book.

Contrary to the definitions outlined in Japanese magazines, though, penbased input is not a necessity for a PDA (though it does make the device smaller by replacing the larger keyboard). If a pen is used as the main input device, the handwriting reco gnition algorithm must be good enough not to detract from the interface. This was one of the main failings of the Apple Newton and one of the successes of Sharp's Zaurus organizer. Not only can the Zaurus recognize romaji (the English alphabet), but also hiragana and katakana (the two Japanese syllabaries) as well as several thousand kanji -- and with a surprisingly low number of errors.

Data synchronization (keeping the important data on your PDA up-to date, or synchronized with data in your desktop computer) requires good connectability. With various companies trying to get their PDA and electronic organizer offerings to market as fast as possible, communication standards are being established after the fact. This situation means that not only do PDAs have to be compatible with numerous standards in order to be useful as a tool for gathering and sharing data, but also that programm ers must work extra hard to guarantee that data transfer is user friendly. Simply transferring data over an RS-232C cable in text format is a useful feature, but converting that data into whatever format an application requires can mean tedious sessions s pent reformatting entire files. To ease the burden of interfacing two machines, applications for a PDA should either be able to transfer data in a standard format that desktop applications can convert, or the PDA should be able to transfer data in an appl ication's native format -- though keeping the broad spectrum of formats needed to implement this in storage may require heaps of memory. However achieved, seamless communication is a must -- without a friendly way to transfer data between a PDA and a desk top computer, a PDA loses much of its attraction.

Will practice make perfect?

A quick look at the Japanese market quickly confirms that no true PDAs exist, since the concept has not been as actively marketed as in the United States. However, the term recently has been splashed across the covers of a myriad of computer magazines, heralding its forthcoming prominence as a marketing buzzword. Compared to the United States, electronic organizers are used in abundance in Japan, but all employ a touch keypad for (extremely slow) data entry and lack the active data-management assistanc e that is the key to what Apple defined in its original concept. There are so many information tools for the technologically hip businessmen (and even some targeted at businesswomen) that a broad listing would be tedious. There are three, however, that ar e representative of the products available: the Sharp Zaurus, the Toshiba Xtend, and the Sony Data Discman. Each has a unique feature or two to distinguish it from the gaggle of run-of-the-mill pocket organizers.

Sharp Zaurus The Sharp Zaurus 3000, and the newly released 4000 and 4000FX, are perhaps the closest things in Japan to a PDA. The two biggest ways in which the Zaurus has diverged from its ancestors, the electronic organizers, is in its input method and communication capability. The Zaurus uses pen-only input for selection, in combination with four character boxes for data entry. For communications, the Zaurus supports both infrared "beaming" (like the Newton) to another of its kind and RS-232C support and software packages for connection to a desktop computer. B ut looking beyond the near perfect character recognition of the Zaurus and a host of other features, the device still only passively stores information, just like any other organizer. Data linking exists only in the form of explicit data searches -- if yo u are checking your schedule and want to find a name in the address book, you must use a search function. In addition, like most organizers, software expansion is limited to IC cards.

Toshiba Xtend

While having several functions similar to those of the Zaurus, the Toshiba Xtend is descended from Japan's ubiquitous word processors -- machines that are less than a computer but far more than a typewriter. The Xtend machine is a hybrid word processor / electronic organizer that uses a pen for input. With a bigger screen for writing, the Xtend is larger than an organizer, but much smaller and lighter than most subnotebooks. Communication is limited to transferring DOS format text files. The problem her e is the lack of a useful concept: a PDA is more of a front end for a desktop computer than a stand-alone machine. But the Xtend's lack of communication capabilities and the expectation that the users use a pen for massive amounts of data entry are ill-co nceived notions at best.

Sony Data Discman

Another class of portable digital tools includes the Sony Data Discman. With neither organizer nor computing capabilities, the Data Discman is basically an electronic book using the Sony Minidisk for storage. However, the number of software/book titles makes the Sony Data Discman a standout in a mob of hardwired organizers. The biggest benefit for the user is the ability to either listen to near-CD quality music or to read Shakespeare (though it would be more impressive if it could do both simultaneous ly).

Galileo

For the Japanese market, the most exciting product on the horizon may be the Galileo, the Japanese version of the Newton MessagePad that is being developed jointly by Sharp Electronics and Apple Computer. The Galileo has been putting in appearances at various computer shows, but while a summer release has been promised, no date has yet been given. And, because of the problematic combined handwriting and kanji recognition (no surprise, considering that the MessagePad still has problems), any unit releas ed this summer will be, at best, a beta version.

PDAs and the Japanese market

When surrounded by the hype of advertising, it is always good advice to take a step back and ask the basic question of whether what is being advertised is really necessary. While most people consider a PDA to be a neat techno-toy, considering that Appl e had shipped 80,000 Newtons worldwide in the product's first six months, and Sharp shipped 400,000 Zaurus units worldwide in its first six months, it is obvious that people want some sort of PIM tool. However, it is equally obvious that it does not have to be strictly a PDA. Considering that 200,000 of the Zaurus units were sold in Japan, Sharp seems to have divined the secrets of Japan's near-mystical consumer electronics market. In particular, Sharp has reaped the benefits of the Tokyo market: namely, high technology adoption rates and high population density.

One major benefit of selling new technology in Japan is the desire of many Japanese to own the latest gadget. According to Ginger Tulley, a manager of Apple Computer, technology adoption rates are much higher in Japan than in the West, where the averag e person must be convinced that a certain product will be useful. Sharp does not rely on just any kind of technophile, however, but aims for a very specific kind: the businessman. Out of the total of 45,000 Zaurus units sold in the first month following i ntroduction of the 4000 line, Sharp reports that 97% have been sold to men, and that 96% of the purchasers are business-related users. With the accelerating pace of Sharp's sales, it is no wonder that other companies (like Canon and Casio) are fighting fo r a piece of the PIM market. Apple will soon throw itself into the fray as well, with Tulley forecasting, "Once the [Japanese PDA] market opens up, it will open up in a big way."

However, where PDAs stand to benefit the most is through their linked growth with the personal communication services market. Pundits are predicting that the multimedia jidai (or age) will be based on the acceptance of information services such as em ail, Internet access, customized news services, and business information. For example, both the FM Nagoya and JWAVE radio stations plan to add PDA services to their broadcast list in the near future. As communications features become more readily availabl e and the hardware penetrates the market, personal communication services will grow to become the driving force of the market. The speed with which the communications market expands will depend on the rate at which standards for PDAs, communications, and software are adopted, so that, like today's personal computers, developers will have a platform on which to base improvements.

According to conservative estimates, by 1995 over 55% of the money spent on PDAs by end-users in the US will be for services. There is no reason that this trend should not be duplicated in Japan, and much to indicate that the Tokyo market will set th e pace for the world. As the base of PDAs increases and demand for services skyrockets, the magic of Tokyo's densely populated metropolitan region will become evident. The inherent benefits for advertising, start-up costs, and service support will give ma ny companies based here in Tokyo a head start in the market, as well as more practical experience tackling problems than their counterparts in other Western countries. As the graph shows, personal handy phone services, or PHS (poised to be a key PDA commu nications technology in Japan), are expected to increase at a phenomenal rate, eventually reaching around 7 trillion ($70 billion) by 2010. This would be a ripe market for products whose major selling points are their communications capabilities: for exam ple, the IBM/Bell South Simon or the Motorola Envoy. With the deregulation of the Japanese portable phone market, if these products could be localized and ported to the PHS standard, foreign service providers might find that they too can profit in the tra ditionally closed Japanese market.

Until recently, the consumer electronics market in Japan has been driven by companies convincing consumers that they need the company's product. With a captive metropolitan market of customers willing to buy the newest electronic toy, large corporati on could afford to be experimentalists. However, as in most of the new media and information markets, companies are no longer sure what will succeed.

With the popularity of the Sharp Zaurus, the customers have given an indication of what they want in the future, and smart companies will comply. As information technologies have matured, users expect more from their machines -- more power, smaller f orm factor, and a friendlier interface. When trimmed down to the basics, that is what the PDA concept is all about. As the consumers make their preferences plain, the companies will eventually catch on to what will be successful. So, while the PDA ideal h as not yet truly arrived to the Japanese market, it will surely come in some form.