Palm Going Unwired

Leading handheld moves toward Bluetooth, other wireless tricks.

Terho Uimonen, IDG News Service

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Bluetooth connectivity will allow Palm devices to access the Internet via Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone handsets. It will initially become available via attachable adapters, which the company plans to introduce in innovative form factors, Alexis Martial, Palm's director of engineering, Europe, said here at Mobile Insights' Go Mobile Europe conference.

"Our Bluetooth rollout strategy is quite aggressive, but I can't give you any specific dates," Martial said.

To quickly add Bluetooth support to existing devices such as the Palm V, the company is looking at designing new casings featuring built-in Bluetooth connectivity. In future, Bluetooth may be integrated into the devices, he added.

Hitting Higher Speeds

By next year, Palm will also introduce add-on hardware modules that will support wireless Internet access over GPRS (general packet radio service), a packet-switched wireless technology that most of Europe's GSM operators are deploying to speed up data transmissions, Martial said.

The add-on modules will be followed before the end of 2001 by an integrated device with built-in GPRS support, he added.

While GSM technology to date has not been good enough in terms of its speed to provide a satisfactory user experience, Palm plans to take advantage of the faster data transmission speeds offered by GPRS to offer location-based services, Martial said. While most GSM networks offer data transmission speeds of only 9.6Kbps (bits per second), GPRS is capable of offering speeds as high as 115Kbps, although, in reality, speeds will more likely be similar to the 56Kbps offered by wired modems.

Tough Competition

Rival handheld device makers also intend to add similar location-based capabilities to their offerings.

Compaq Computer, which sells competing devices based on Microsoft's Pocket PC software platform, plans to offer Bluetooth connectivity through a PC Card-based offering as soon as they become widely available, said Florian Reithmeier, a product marketing manager for Compaq.

Palm is not too worried about competition from the Pocket PC camp, Martial claimed. Instead, Palm expects to face stiffer competition from companies such as mobile phone vendor Nokia and Sony.

"But both Nokia and Sony are our licensees, so at least we will get revenue from royalties if they are successful," he says.

Palm is still the runaway leader in the handheld category, with a 70 percent market share, although it remains to be seen if the company can maintain its dominant market position in the future, said Tim Scannell, an analyst at Mobile Insights, in an earlier presentation.

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