Palm Opens Up to Wireless Options

NEW YORK -- Palm is moving into a wireless world with a flurry of new products and partnerships announced Tuesday here at the TechXNY conference.

Intel announced that it has launched a wireless local area network module for the Palm m500 series. The module, developed by Xircom, is the first WLAN product for the m500 series, Intel says in a statement. Intel completed its purchase of mobile communications company Xircom in March of this year.

The module snaps onto the back of the handheld device and is easily installed using plug-and-play software, Intel says. The Xircom Wireless LAN Module will be available from July, priced at $299, Intel says.

Meanwhile, Palm and PricewaterhouseCoopers announced that they will link up to help companies bring wireless access via Palm devices to enterprise applications, the companies say in a statement. In September 2000, the companies tested a program called "Palm@Enterprise," which brought wireless enterprise applications through a corporate portal to Palm devices, the companies say.

Extended Systems and Palm also announced that they will work together. The companies signed a non-binding deal under which Palm will resell Extended Systems' TNDConnect Server Software as a Palm-branded product by the end of the year.

XTNDConnect Server allows Palm handhelds to access corporate information from enterprise applications including Microsoft's Exchange and Lotus Development's Domino.

Finally, Palm and Matsushita Electric Corporation of America (Panasonic) announced Tuesday efforts to get consumers and businesses to adopt Secure Digital memory and input/output cards.

Panasonic is a founding member of the Secure Digital Association, and uses the technology in its digital cameras, digital video camcorders, voice recorders and MP3 audio players, while Palm introduced the technology to its m500 series of handhelds earlier this year.