Dell has responded to media reports that it plans to discontinue its line of Axim personal digital assistants (PDAs) once current stocks have been depleted.
Industry watchers have suspected that such a move was on the cards for some time.
Just under a year ago, Axim and Pocket PC online community Aximsite sent an open letter to Michael Dell asking for clarification on a number of issues, including the fate of its PDA business.
"As you may have heard, rumours are running wild that Dell is leaving the PDA Market. I am not sure if it is true or not, but a lot of signs are pointing me to this being true. You guys ditched the Dell DJ as well, so it won't surprise me," said Aximsite administrator Chris Leckless in the letter.
"If this is true, my question is this, Why? I understand that the Axim is most likely a microscopic portion of the income, but this is a sector that I am sure Dell is making money in. Not only making money, but selling well too! HP has already mapped their future and seems to have stopped selling the X51v rival, the iPAQ hx4700 series. If you leave the game too, where will the medical students and other that are just starting to use a Pocket PC go?"
At the time of going to press, Dell hadn't published an official release detailing its reasons for axing the Axim brand, only choosing to respond to speculation with a written statement.
"Dell has no immediate plans to offer a follow-on product to the Axim X51 family," the company said in the statement.
