MARKETING NEWS -- #1.) Reuters is reporting that IDC Japan is projecting that the Japanese Mobile Device Market will grow 53.2% to 2.17 million units in 1999; #2.) Nikkei English News notes that "handheld data terminals" sales rose 24.% to 1.42 million units in Japan in 1998, and that Sharp has announced that their share of the Japanese PDA market has dropped 26.2% to a 42.2% share in 1998; and #3.) South American Business Intelligence notes that 3Com has sold 90,000 Palm OS devices in Brazil in 1999, and that they are projecting tripling their current sales (in the 10,000 range) to corporate customers over the next year.
Avantgo has announced plans to team with Vicinity to bring MapBlast! maps to handheld devices.
Motorola has announced the release their latest two-way pager developer kit that comes with: a PageWriter 2000 two-way pager, a PageWriter 2000X two-way wireless communications center, and a Creatalink 2 XT two-way data transceiver. Pricing data and availability were not available at press time.
Thomas A Edison, Inc. has announced a new "subnotebook" device that they are calling "Mini IdeaBook." This US$1400 device runs with a 266-MHz Intel Pentium MMX, and supports Windows 98/NT and Caldera's OpenLinux. [Business Wire]
PMN News Service published for 29Jun99 has news on: #1.) PalmTop's new graphical map Palm OS solution called "Route"; #2.) Actual Software's announcement on plans to use Certicom's Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) technology to implement SSL security features in Actual Software's MultiMail Pro application; and #3.) PC Expo New York City review.
Abaco has announced a new industrial savvy Windows CE thin-client software developer kit (SDK) that is ideal for mobile computing devices. The SDK is code-named "Varadero."
Eric Schneck notes that Newton users should be rejoicing in the news that Metricom has plans to offer "national wireless service" over the next year in the United States. There are already several Newton-compatible Metricom-savvy modem options for a wide-range of Newton devices.