Kindle, Eee PC, PocketSurfer2: all bellwethers of the UMD

Stuart Corner
Monday, 10 December 2007 06:30

Opinion and Analysis

ABI says that, by appealing to a wide range of buyers they will reach shipments of nearly 95 million units by 2012, and should prove extremely profitable for their makers. However it expects navigation devices to account for the majority of these shipments, but a substantial minority of 14 million to be devices representing entirely new applications.

"Because this is such a new field, MID makers are in the dark about where their customers will come from," said Schatt. "ABI Research has estimated the conversion rates for many traditional portable devices becoming Internet-enabled, but significantly there are brand new categories coming out, offering completely new applications. The Kindle is one of the first of these, and we will see more, as yet undreamed of, concepts entering this market."

ABI suggest that web browsing, music, navigation, voice, and data communications including email and IM, photo/video, and vertical commercial applications will all be popular, along with new applications, such as medical monitoring, are now in development as well. One obvious UMD, not without precedent, is a very simple low cost device purely for email. Such a device already exists: it is called PocketMail and sells for about $US100. However its communications technology is seriously old hat: acoustic coupler. Remember those?

According to Wikipedia, PocketMail devices "are very popular among recreational vehicle [aka camper van] enthusiasts, especially when vacationing in Mexico, and the elderly who want 'something simple' for email... Although still in use, popularity of the PocketMail peaked around 2000." The PocketMail was sold until recently in Australia by an ASX-listed company of the same name but it has now given up on these and gone looking for uranium to dig out of the ground instead.

But imagine if you could take out a lot of the cost and complexity and offer, for a fixed monthly subscription a device that operate like the PocketMail s over a cellular network, international roaming included. It has proved that if the price is right, such a devices would sell.

And there must be many other similar applications. ABI Research has some suggestions, but you would have to buy their report to discover these.