Sometimes looking back at history surprises us. Smartphones and PDAs have come a long way. After the first handhelds made their debut, who would've thought they'd be able to connect to the internet, access e-mail realtime, and take pictures, while they've been getting smaller? Today I'm starting Wayback Wednesday. Every week, I'll feature an article on smartphones or PDAs from years ago.

For this inaugural issue, here's an article from DevBiz Magazine: "Blackberry OS: The Next Monster?" Written in 2001, in talks about how RIM's increased revenue and adaptation of Java seemed to make it more attractive to developers.

The piece is geared toward the technical crowd, but there are still some interesting facts for people in general. Palm's past PDA dominance at 87 percent market share was cited as an obstacle RIM might have had to overcome.

Fast forward to the present, and we see both companies working together. Palm has started integrating RIM's push e-mail service into its smartphones, in hopes of attracting corporate customers. RIM on the other hand, hopes to expand into the consumer market.