Palm announces cell phone add-on

From...

by Agam Shah

(IDG) -- Santa Clara, Calif.-based Palm and RealVision Technology, of Hong Kong, Friday announced a telephony attachment device for the Palm V handheld device, enabling the PDA (personal digital assistant) to function like a cell phone. The device, as yet unnamed, will snap on to the PDA and will include a headset to enable users to listen to and hold phone conversations.

Scheduled to go on sale in early 2001, the device will be available initially to users in Europe and Asia at a price of $299. The device will have dual-band GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) compatibility.

"We have no plans for the U.S. market yet," said Tim Roper, director of business development at Palm. The company decided to first go after the Asia and Europe markets as the GSM cellular standard tends to dominate in those regions, he added.

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The release of the cell phone snap-on device for the Palm V comes a few days after PDA rival Handspring announced the VisorPhone, a snap-on feature for its handheld device, the Handspring Visor.

Palm's Roper stressed that the timing of the Palm announcement was not related to the earlier news from HandSpring. "It's pure coincidence," Roper said. "Our product has been under development for a couple of months."

But will users accept a device that converts their Palm V into a cell phone?

"The device will surely have its early adopters," said Tim Scannell, industry analyst at Mobile Insights. He was not too sure about the device's future, though, adding that it could become a standard fixture if embraced by early adopters.

"Add-on devices are a Band-Aid approach for PDA manufacturers to provide solutions," Scannell said. He believes, however, that the snap-on device does mark a step in the right direction for Palm's PDA and the company's wireless applications.

"Wireless functionality is an important part of Palm's strategy for their PDAs," Scannell said, adding that such functionality will soon become standard in all the company's handheld devices.

Nor are PDA manufacturers the only ones combining computing functionality with cell phones, according to Scannell. "Cell phone manufacturers are moving down the convergence path as well and they will succeed more in integrating PDA functionality [in their devices]," he said. "A lot of such products will be seen from Motorola."

But Palm's Roper denied that his company is trying to compete with cell phone manufacturers with its wireless telephony snap-on device.

"We are not trying to turn the PDA into a cell phone," Roper said. "The Palm's [PDA's] primary application is be a wireless data center," adding that telephony had to be integrated into the handhelds at some point.

"In fact, many cell phone manufacturers have licensed the Palm OS," Roper said. Among the licensees are Nokia and Kyocera, he added.

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PDAs and cell phones converging
(InfoWorld)
Web phones may revive online ads
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A Palm inside a Motorola phone
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Where is wireless going?
(The Industry Standard)
Handspring sidles into wireless
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Internet phone debuts
(PC World)
Microsoft to air wireless server
(NW Fusion)
Mobile phones, PDAs popular for Web use
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Palm, Inc.
RealVision Technology

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