PDAs increasingly an enterprise play

The use of personal digital assistant (PDA) devices in UK companies looks set to increase, with demand outstripping that for desktop PCs.

The latest National Computing Centre (NCC) IT Strategy survey shows 72 per cent of organisations now reporting some use of PDAs - up from 61 per cent a year ago. Although only about a fifth of user organisations include PDAs as part of their wider IT strategy - 21 per cent, as opposed to 18 per cent 12 months back - 65 per cent predict that approach will be the norm in two years.

By contrast, the research shows the two-year growth rate for desktop PCs has fallen below 7 per cent, with many users postponing upgrades to Windows XP.

The NCC welcomed the uptake of the smaller devices but advises IT managers to have back-up and control procedures in place to look after a PDA-equipped workforce properly.

The market for PDAs has stalled in recent years after high hopes, with devices often losing out to cheap PCs, laptops at one end and increasingly smart communications devices and phones at the other. Recent research by Datamonitor said handheld makers must start offering more extensive packages which are about software as much as the hardware

The NCC IT Strategy survey polled 458 organisations with around 700,000 end users of IT, across all sectors in the UK. More information is available at http://www.ncc.co.uk .