October 5, 1998

3Com Canada has announced that Evans Research has released a new marketshare report that found that during the first six months of 1998 that 3Com's PalmPilot devices account for 77% of all handheld devices sold in Canada.

Network Computing has an interesting article posted to their WWW site entitled "Network Testing in the Palm of Your Hand: Handheld test devices and protocol analyzers are network-troubleshooting must-haves."

Sylvia Dennis at Newsbytes reported on 24Sep98 in a review of the happenings at the recent PCS'98 conference that Unwired Planet's UP.Browser technology now supports a host of next-generation CDMA cellular phone devices.

The "bar coding" Palm III all-in-one device being developed on the hardware side between Symbol and 3Com called the "SPT 1500" now has an "enterprise savvy" mobile data capture software developer kit (SDK) available from The Windward Group.

Motorola has a new "big screen" two-way pager in the works called the "CP1250" and a set of new infrastructure initiatives to support the device. Industry analysts think that this could be one of the first "advanced information service" devices expected to start showing up in the marketplace by the end of 1998.

The Georgia State Patrol and Southern LINC has announced a new "public/private partnership" in which Southern LINC is being evaluated as the State Patrol's preferred provider of wireless communication services. As a result, "nearly 300 Georgia State Patrol troopers and command personnel are using Southern LINC, which combines two-way radio, mobile phone service, numeric and text paging and data transmission in one hand-held or installed device." [SOURCE: Business Wire, 01Sep98]

Franklin Electronic Publishers' new RexPro is now available for US$320, and that includes a docking station and StarFish TrueSync software (now owned by Motorola). This 1.4-ounce, Type II PC Card form factor device can store 512K of data (6,000 addresses, memos, or other information). [SOURCE: Reuters, 07Sep98]

Hardy Macia at Catamount Software has announced the release of v3.0 of PocketMoney for the Newton--a comprehensive financial account management package with a host of new features. The new version costs US$40, with upgrades from previous versions only costing US$15.

PelicanWare has announced that NewtCase--the popular utility suite for Newton--will now be sold and supported by its designers at Innovative Computer Solutions (ICS). NewtCase includes GestureLaunch with BarKeep, designed specially for the MessagePad 2000/2100. With GestureLaunch, you can launch packages and perform routine tasks with a simple pen stroke. BarKeep lets the user change the size, location, and appearance of the built-in button bar.

-Steve Holden (sholden@pencomputing.com)