Microsoft catches up to Palm in PDA OS market

Chicago (IL) - Microsoft continues to increase its PDA OS market share. According to a Gartner Dataquest report, the company now holds 40 percent of the market and for the first time virtually tied Palm OS, which has dominated the market for more than eight years.

The first quarter of 2004 saw the shipments of Microsoft Windows CE-based devices rise to a new record level of 1,099,931 units, resulting in a market share of 40.2 percent. That is up from 1,051,401 units and a market share of 36.7 percent on year ago. In the same time frame shipments of Palm OS-based devices decreased from 1,403,418 units to 1,113,089. The market share of the OS slid 49.0 percent to 40.7 percent, according to a report released by Gartner Dataquest.

Another winner in terms of unit sales was Research in Motion (RIM), which was able to increase shipments more than four-fold, from 89,500 to 405,000 units, boosting its market share from 3.1 to 14.8 percent. Linux-based devices decreased slightly from 52,967 to 52,300 devices, the report said.

Palm Computing was founded by Jeff Hawkins in January 1992. After the firm’s first product, the Graffiti handheld, which is widely seen as the first tablet-like PC, the company was acquired in 1995 by US Robotics. The first Palm handheld models 1000 and 5000 were announced in January 1996.

Microsoft started developing a handheld OS at a similar time, between 1990 and 1992. A first Windows Mobile device was presented in 1992, resulting in the "WinPad" project which was supported by seven OEMs, including Compaq, Motorola and Sharp by 1994. Late in 1994, WinPad was discontinued and merged into the new project "Pulsar", which resulted in the first version of Windows CE in November 1996.

In 2000, well into the second version of Windows CE, the OS held only 11 percent of the market, Gartner Dataquest said. Since then, the OS has gained steadily against Palm OS.