The world market for personal digital assistants (PDAs) continues to fall (down by about a quarter on last year). In the first quarter of this year, according to IDC, about 2.5m were shipped worldwide, of which more than a third were Palm, still the market leader.

There are a variety of explanations - the economy and economic instability, seasonal sales and so on - but it could also be that their "space" is disappearing. People just don't need them anymore.

Why? For a long time, I took my Handspring everywhere. It was a small and convenient means of carrying my calendar and address book and it had the crucial functionality of synchronising with my laptop and therefore the company calendar and address book.

Of late, however, it has been left on the desk. I haven't stopped using it though: it now serves the single purpose of synchronising Microsoft Entourage on my Apple PowerBook with Microsoft Outlook in the office. Its end is certainly nigh now that Microsoft has announced that sometime this summer, Entourage will finally hook up with Outlook servers directly.

It is interesting to reflect on the fact that the synchronisation function outlasted the calendar and address book functions. This confirms the suggestion that connectivity is beginning to trump convergence in consumer devices. Once I could synchronise my phone with my laptop, I started to forget the PDA. For other people, synchronising the phone and the PDA might mean reduced laptop use (and other combinations).

Naturally, I don't use the phone for entering appointments, typing notes, playing games or looking at photos of the kids (all things I did with my PDA), but merely being able to see my diary and look up phone numbers turns out to be more than sufficient.

Making sure that smart devices connect with each other properly, over the steadily more pervasive internet and other digital channels, seems a much better bet than trying to pack more and more functionality into the devices themselves. I'm not sure, for example, if I want a phone that is an MP3 player. I think I would rather have an iPod with Bluetooth that could use my phone to download new music if it needed it.

I am not sure if I want a (tiny) camera built in to my phone, either: I think I would prefer a camera and phone that could talk sensibly to each other when required. Making sure that only "allowed" laptops could talk to my camera (and balancing the security and convenience aspects of those connections) is not trivial, but that is the area where additional functionality is justified.

At the consumer level, it is also about choice and upgrade cycles. If I want a new MP3 player, I don't want to change my phone. If I want a new phone, I don't want to change my digital camera. This isn't bad for business, because manufacturers will sell me, in total, more of the gadgets.

Adding more connectivity, not more functionality, has to be the way forward for personal digital devices.

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