Ericsson, IBM, Lotus, Oracle, Palm Computing, and GPRS Applications Alliance -- "a cross-industry initiative designed to serve as a catalyst in the advancement of applications based on the new mobile packet switching technology called 'GPRS' (General Packet Radio Services for GSM and TDMA networks)." [SOURCE: PR Newswire, New York Times]

Microsoft has announced plans to "co-develop" wireless Windows CE devices with British Telecommunications. [SOURCE: Wireless Today]

Intel has announced plans to buy "wireless telephone chip maker" DSP Communications for US$1.6 billion. [SOURCE: Reuters, PC Week]

PeerDirect and Riverbed Technologies have announced a new joint partnership to "standardize" mobile data exchange and mobile device management between each other's technologies. This should enable enterprise solutions to be built that offer "robust replication" of data an applications between handheld devices and servers.

Novatel Wireless has announced plans to "be the first: to license Metricom's Ricochet Wireless Modems (CDPD, capable of 128-kbps) to mobile professionals.

AOL has signed a deal to offer "AOL Anywhere" instant messaging capabilities on Motorola's latest phone and pager devices. [SOURCE: Washington Post]

-Steve Holden (sholden@pencomputing.com) eFax: 978-246-3067