Each year, SPB Software House conducts a survey of the Pocket PC community to evaluate trends in Pocket PC usage, and determine what their focus should be for the coming year.  Today, Spb announced the results of the third "Spb Pocket PC Survey".   The results of the survey show some expected and some surprising trends in the way people use their Pocket PC devices.

Here are some of the results of this year’s Spb Pocket PC Survey:

Fewer people buy additional WiFi cards (23% in 2004 vs. only 15% in 2006). This trend reflects the fact that many new Pocket PC devices have built-in WiFi capability included.

The average storage card size people buy has increased more than 3 times during the last 2 years (341M in 2004 vs. 1.2G in 2006).

MiniSD and MicroSD formats became more popular while CF card use has decreased.

The Number of people who buy Bluetooth speakerphones has more than doubled during the last 2 years. This result is related to the fact that an increasing number of people use their Pocket PC as a phone.

Although many new devices have built-in GPS, the number of people who buy GPS accessories is still increasing (30% in 2004 vs. 39% in 2006).

Almost two times fewer people synchronize over WiFi than a year ago (18% in 2005 vs. 10% in 2006).  This result was expected because this feature was removed from the latest version of Microsoft ActiveSync.

One surprise was the steady rate at which people are backing up their data.  Given the increase in sales of Windows Mobile 5 and its persistent storage technology it would be natural to expect a decrease in the number of people who backup their data. Despite the advent of persistent storage technology, however,  people did not stop backing up their devices (80% in 2004 vs. 79% in 2006). Additionally, since more OEMS do not include backup programs on their devices, the number of people who use the 3rd-party backup programs has increased from 13% in 2004 to 28% in 2006.

The number of people who use their Pocket PC as a phone has increased from 14% in 2004 and 35% in 2005, to 56% in 2006.

Although most people still use their Pocket PCs as an organizer (85% in 2004 vs. 84% in 2006) the second and the third frequently reported usages have been changed from games and music in 2004 to web (73%) and emails (63%) in 2006.

Visit Spb Software House web site to read the full results of the 2006 SPB Pocket PC Survey.  Additionally, Spb Software has also made the full results of the 2005 and 2004 surveys available on their web site.