New Pocket PC handhelds unveiled at Microsoft launch

SAN FRANCISCO: Microsoft Corp. and major computer companies on Thursday

announced a passel of new handheld computers in a marketing blitz aimed chiefly

at business users and establishing the operating system as the dominant platform

for portable computing.

Compaq Computer Corp., Casio Computer Co. Ltd., Toshiba Corp., and others

unveiled new devices designed to run on Microsoft's Pocket PC 2002 operating

system. The new handheld computers join models from Hewlett-Packard Co.

announced last month.

The Pocket PC 2002 system is an attempt to win new customers in the business

market by offering support for wireless networking and improved security - areas

that Microsoft sees as having been neglected by industry leader Palm Inc.

"We're focused on mobile professionals," said Ben Waldman, vice

president of mobile devices for Microsoft. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said the

new handhelds would function as both phones and entertainment systems as well as

computers. "Each one needs to be a general purpose communications

device."

Retail prices for devices running Pocket PC 2002, an update to software

released 18 months ago, range from $499 for Compaq's iPaq H3670 to $649 for the

iPaq H3870 and the Hewlett-Packard Jornada 568.

In total, Microsoft said 22 hardware vendors had signed on to support Pocket

PC 2002, which the company is touting for both its business functions and its

multimedia applications, including a streaming audio and video player.

Compaq unveiled a number of add-on modules for the new iPaq series, including

a sleeve that will turn the device into a tri-band GSM cellular phone and

wireless Internet terminal. That sleeve is expected to be available in December.

The new version of the operating system also allows users to connect to

corporate networks, control desktop computers remotely, read electronic books,

and run a new spellcheck function in the Pocket Word program. In a

demonstration, Microsoft showed it used as a telephone as well.

Chipping away at Palm



Palm took the world by storm with its easy-to-use devices that recognize
handwriting, but it has failed to make inroads into the corporate market for

handheld devices.

Microsoft, updating its third try at competing system, is gaining ground,

companies and analysts say. Palm executives were not immediately available for

comment.

Networking company Symbol Technologies Inc., which has just introduced a card

that fits in a CompactFlash memory expansion slot and hooks the Pocket PC into

wireless networks, says Palm's popularity is waning. Information technology, or

IT, technicians who run corporate networks prefer Microsoft's industrial

strength support and have a clearer idea of where Microsoft products are headed,

said Chris Ciervo, direct of mobile computing systems marketing.

"We are beginning to see a little bit of a slide, if you will, in Palm

versus Pocket PC," Ciervo said. Research firm IDC released a report saying

that Pocket PCs were gaining ground in their bid to overtake Palm in the market

for handheld devices, which it projected would be worth $6.6 billion by 2005.

IDC said that while Palm devices still accounted for almost 60 per cent of

purchases by business, the popular iPaq handhelds by Compaq were at 30 per cent

market share and showing signs of rising.

Among the biggest corporations, IDC said more are leaning toward supporting

Pocket PC than Palm OS devices. "Palm's pervasiveness gives it a default

position in the enterprise, but Pocket PC vendors look poised to make

gains," the research firm said.

Toshiba, whose US division will launch its first Pocket PC device next month,

will not even offer the $569 handheld to consumers, at least in the beginning.

In contrast to the previous generation of Pocket PC handhelds, all of the

Pocket PC 2002 devices unveiled on Thursday have uniform display, processor

speed, and memory standards.

The units all run on the same processor: Intel Corp.'s StrongARM, running at

206 megahertz. They all have reflective thin-film transistor (TFT) screens with

240x320 pixel resolution displays, and 32 megabytes of read-only memory. Most of

the devices will launch between Thursday and the end of the year.

(C) Reuters Limited 2001.