Word that the handheld computer market is moribund, reaffirmed recently by market research company IDC, does not come as a surprise. What is surprising is that the handheld market did not implode sooner.

Those road warriors who spend time in airport terminals will know that the erstwhile vendors of the handheld device moved on some time ago to the portable DVD player, the miniature digital still camera and the iPod. Airport shops are always pursuing technophiles who always seems to have $400 burning holes their pockets.

The clue to the handheld’s demise can be gleaned by asking: What does an electronic device do for a consumer that he couldn’t do for himself before?

So the mobile phone user answers by saying it allows you to make and receive calls on the move; useful if potentially burdensome. The portable DVD player user says it allows you watch films on the move, which is at the least distracting and with good DVD selection potentially entertaining. The iPoD is more problematic because it allows you to play popular music on the move which could be done before in the form of the Sony Walkman. However, the iPod does allow you to store hundreds of songs, which puts it ahead of the portable compact disk player. But the warning signs are there for the iPod what is very “cool” today can very quickly become old-fashioned tomorrow.

What does a handheld device or PDA do?

No, don’t give me all that: “I use it to store all my contacts, phone numbers, e-mail addresses.” I have an address book which does the same thing a lot cheaper, and I didn’t spend 86 hours entering the data using some strange swizzle stick. I used a pen and the very familiar English language.

Also, spare me the following line: “I wrote my PhD thesis on my handheld.” If it is small and handheld, it lacks an adequate keyboard. If it has a decent keyboard, even an add-on one, it isn’t being held in your hand.

The good thing about the handheld, from the vendor and chip maker points of view, was that it was in-the-box seductive. Having seen other people use them, you wondered how useful they were. And it only cost a few hundred bucks to find out.

I am forced to conclude that the handheld computer was a fad, and a rather empty status symbol at that. The Psion 3a was a beautifully put-together little machine with elegant software. Ultimately, it was the most expensive alarm clock I ever bought. It’s true that the miniature keys got a pounding from playing some strange form of virtual card game, but a pack of playing cards would have been a lot cheaper and easier to see. That Psion 3a is now gathering dust at the back of a drawer somewhere because the internal lithium battery ran out of juice.

Just like the entire handheld market.