Industry & Markets

The mobile handheld computer device market is the fastest growing consumer electronics market in history. The traditional pen or stylus based PDA has been joined by the new smart phones in providing users with computer functionality in a highly mobile "pocket-size" device.

The traditional PDA included a pen or stylus-based device and a small built-in keyboard. Smart phones, also known as PDA phones, grew out of the mobile phone by adding functions such as a Personal Information Manager (PIM) and enhanced keypads for data entry.

Pen input is adequate when working with PIM applications or entering minimal data onto a PDA or smart phone, but keyboard input is becoming increasingly important as users demand a higher level of data interaction.

The market needs a mobile QWERTY keyboard that lets users type the same way they do on their desktop or laptop keyboards. All other data input solutions face considerable resistance, especially as PDA's and smart-phones reach a wider, less tech-savvy audience.

The most popular peripheral device in the handheld device market are keyboards

The market for smart phone devices is expected to explode as only 23.5 million smart phones had been sold at the end of 2005, a fraction of the overall cell-phone market estimated at 1.56 billion devices. This is expected to change with industry analysts estimating that the global market, with 1.8 billion mobile devices, will have 49 million smart phones by year-end 2006.

This number of smart phones is expected to double again to 98 million in the following year while the number of cell phones worldwide creeps ahead to 1.85 billion. As the price of smart-phone technology falls, the devices are expected to push deeper into the mainstream.

To take full advantage of the new PDA and smart phone features such as email and word processing requires a keyboard. To take full advantage of the pocket-size convenience of the PDA, the keyboard must be no larger than the PDA and very light.

The revolutionary Pocketop Keyboard is the first fully functional PDA keyboard to "break the pocket barrier" by not only being the lightest portable keyboard on the market while offering the user the traditional touch, feel and functionality of a laptop keyboard, but folding to the exact size of a Palm Pilot.