Palm to lose ground as PDA price cuts loom

NEWS Handhelds and personal digital assistants (PDA) are set to plummet in price, according to a report by research house Gartner Group. The report claims the mobile computing market is soon to benefit from the same discounting that has allowed prices of mobile phones and PCs to drop. Mobile digital devices will become subsidised by service provision agreements in the same way that mobile phones prices are subsidised by network operators. The deals could even see the majority of handhelds given away for free. Gartner Group predicts that market leader Palm could lose much of its market share to rivals Microsoft and the Symbian alliance.