Brighthand published a very good retrospective of the PDA market describing everything from the early days of the Apple Newton to the recent announcement by Sony that it would withdraw its PDAs from the U.S. and European markets. This leaves the stand-alone PDA market with two major participants– palmOne and Hewlett-Packard.
PDA fans are having a hard time coming to grips with the fact that their platform is being converged out of existence. I have always liked PalmOS devices, but it becomes more difficult every day for many people to justify carrying a separate organizer and mobile phone. There are many jobs where this is still not the case, like the medical field. But the total number of workers in such industires is still a relatively small percentage of the potential market for handheld electronics.
In light of recent market developments, Operation Gadget will devote more of its focus to smartphones than to PDAs. I see nothing on the horizon that is likely to change that.