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 COLUMN
A penguin in the hand ANYONE who spends any time considering the hot technologies of 2001 has to consider the impact that handheld devices made on the IT world. Like the PCs of old, they began to appear as limited tools, which could do one or two things fairly well. But as P.J. Connolly notes in his Technology of the Year article about handhelds this week, these devices are rapidly growing into critical systems. But there are some other things going on in the handheld arena that P.J. did not mention.
Several PDAs have run Linux for some time, even though they do not ship with Linux installed. Some of the Palm models and the Compaq iPaq handheld have been notable in this area. Personally, I own an Agenda VR3, which (as far as I know) was the first publicly available PDA to ship with Linux installed. Is this particular PDA a world-beater? No, but it does show a little of what can be done with Linux in this arena. The fact that I can telnet into this PDA and run applications with the graphic output appearing on my desktop system may not mean much to some people, but it tells me that Linux PDAs could be significantly useful in the coming highly networked world. Apparently, I am not alone, since both the G.Mate Yopy and the Sharp Zaurus PDAs ship with versions of embedded Linux installed. But why use open-source software on handhelds? First, there are cost considerations. Sure, a manufacturer may be able to absorb a $5 to $10 licensing fee for software on a $250 device, but we all know what happens in this industry. High volumes eventually drive competition up and hardware prices down. A handheld costing a few hundred dollars today will probably list for $39.95 in a couple years. If you are going to survive at that price point, you cannot afford to pay 10 percent to 20 percent of the retail price for software royalties. Second, open source means flexibility. Your current handheld may be little more than an electronic equivalent of pad and paper, but tomorrow's device is likely to resemble your laptop, rather than a battery-powered notepad. Finally, it is far easier to take an OS that already has most of the features you need and make it fit your needs than it is to take something that was never designed for high-end functions and try to extend it. When the desktop PC finally grew into a rich computing environment, even the mighty Microsoft had to ditch MS-DOS to build Windows NT and its successors. It is very hard to stretch something far that was never designed for elasticity. As Linux scales from mainframes down to an experimental wristwatch, which IBM developed, flexibility is no problem. So check that next gizmo you place in your pocket. It might well be a little Linux box. Return to our 2001 InfoWorld Technology of the Year package. Would you use a Linux PDA? Let us know at the Open Source forum, www.infoworld.com/os or contact Russell at pavlicek@linuxsolutions.com .  RELATED SUBJECTS  Operating SystemsDiscuss this article in our online forums MORE > SPONSORED WHITE PAPERS 
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