Blue Ocean Strategy
PDA stands for Personal Digital Assistant.It is an assistant that helps people digitally, and PDA is called the handheld computers now. Why PDA? The original idea was from Cher Wang, the co-founder and chairperson of HTC who traveled throughout Europe and America frequently. The idea was due to the businessmen who travel around the world need to have a portable PDA to send their e-mails from time to time.
The first company that released this type of products was Apple Inc. In 1992, Apple released the product called Newton, but it was too heavy for people to carry and travel with. Also the features were too complicated, and it was not user friendly. Therefore, it was not accepted by the market at that time. In 1996, after reviewing the causes of the failure of Apple, the company Palm released a new product—Palm Pilot. The size of Palm Pilot was as small as your pocket, and it had the features of business card contacts, calendar, notes and other needs that designed for business purposes. Also, it was able to connect with the general PC. It was really popular at that time.
After HTC adjusted their target to the PDA market, Mr. Cho, the co-founder of HTC and Mr. Chou, the CEO of HTC attended the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show in autumn to get more orders around the world. In order to attract international buyers, HTC had released a PDA that had color screen, integrated the connection with general PC, and upgraded transmission speed in one.
HTC has worked with their first honored company, Microsoft since this international exhibition in November 1997. In addition, HTC had transferred itself from laptop ODM to the PDA market successfully.
[Left] Newton, released by Apple, weighs 410 grams (picture: Chunghwa Telecom)[Right] Palm Pilot, weighs 160 grams (picture: Soomal.com)