The Stanford Windows CE User Group (SWUG) has reportedly been disbanded, because of "a nearly complete lack of actual users." The Stanford Newton (SNUG) and PalmPilot (SPUG) user groups continue to meet regularly and attract new members. SNUG meets on the second and fourth Tuesday of each month, SPUG meets on the first Tuesday. Both meet at 7pm at Printer's Inc. Bookstore Cafe, 310 California Ave, Palo Alto. For more information, see pobox.com/~snug and pobox.com/~spug.

There is a Windows CE specific article on the front page of InfoWorld published on 21Sep98. The article, written by Ephraim Schwartz and Bob Trott, examines future Windows CE directions that will most likely be announced at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference being held on 12Oct98 in Denver, Colorado. InfoWorld Electric has more information about the "yet-to-be-officially-announced" version 2.1 of Windows CE.

The PC Week published on 14Sep98 has two potentially interesting articles on page 37: "Rex gets new sync software" and "New Software Links Handheld Databases (PumaTech, Sybase, and Starfish)" by John Spooner and John McCright.

Malaysia's Computimes has announced that Philips is now shipping in Malaysia the Windows CE-savvy Nino 300 palm-size PC.

O'Reilly & Associates have announced a new book by Neil Rhodes and Julie McKeehan entitled "Palm Programming: Developing Applications for the Palm Computing Platform" (ISBN#1-56592-525-4). The book will retail for under US$33 and should be available by Nov98. You can learn more via the new O'Reilly PalmPilot WWW site at palmpilot.oreilly.com.

Casio has announced that their complete line of Windows CE 2.0 devices--the Cassiopeia PA-2400, A-10, and PA-2500 handhelds--support the new AvantGo v2.0.

Oracle and Puma Technology have announced a new initiative to work closer together to "synchronize mobile sales and marketing applications" for PalmPilot and Windows CE devices.

Actual Software's new MultiMail Pro 2.0 for PalmPilot devices (POP3 and IMAP4 email client) completely supports the remote downloading and updating of information created in AportisDoc format.

Motorola has announced a new first generation chipset that "bundles" all the functionality of past ReFLEX boards into one single chipset that will make it "easy" to bundle "embedded two-way wireless messaging" into future devices.

3Com has been able to turn a small profit for this financial fiscal quarter that ended in 28Aug98. The press release about this financial news cited "strong sales" in "new products" across many marketplaces. No specific PalmPilot related information was published in the press release though.

Son Nguyen notes via email that Simon Bell has released SimpleMail 3.1 for the Newton. This new version handles APOP authentication, more robust UIDL processing, and a Text Stationary for sending quick messages from the built-in Notes application.

-Steve Holden (sholden@pencomputing.com)