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High-tech firms have launched the race to become the first to integrate the wireless telephone, pager and personal organizer into one convenient hand-held package.
At the Comdex high-tech show, firms from Sweden's Ericsson to the U.S.-based Handspring, maker of the new Visor personal organizer (PDA), were displaying their latest products that they hope will capture the growing and potentially lucrative hand-held Internet device market.
Public interest in such integrated products is high. Pocket-sized personal organizers – basically, computers in miniature – are becoming increasingly complex and sophisticated.
Handspring appears to be leading the charge, marrying personal organizer and cell phone functions in one sleek device that created a sensation at Comdex, which is the biggest U.S. technology trade show. The product, Visor, will hit the U.S. market in December.
Visor is simple and easy to use, and offers telephone functions with a loudspeaker, microphone, and instant dialing from an address book.
But why should you discard your perfectly functioning cell phone for a Visor?
“With that system (Visor), you can schedule a meeting on your PDA, (and) watch the screen while on the phone," explained Scott Patterson, representing Visor at their Comdex display stand, adding that the screen on the Visor is bigger than anything yet seen on cell phones.
Personal organizer marker leader Palm, another U.S. firm, has nothing to compete with Visor as yet, but is already working on a new-generation reply to the Handspring product.
The firm says it will launch its new PDA-telephone jointly with Motorola in 2001 or 2002.
Wireless telephone makers say that they are not prepared to be left behind in the race for better products in a seemingly colossal wireless Internet market in the near future.
Ericsson has already launched, in Europe, a new cell phone with an expanded screen that offers personal organizer (PDA) functions such as a diary, calendar, and to-do lists as well as a touch keyboard.
The United States will have to wait until the end of the year before the product will go on the market here.
It is uncertain who will win the race to integrate functions into hand-held devices, but the product will definitely be widely used soon, experts say.
"Most people, in five to 10 years from now, are going to be holding some form of computing-based device that has voice attached to it rather than a cell-based one," said Gerry Purdy, CEO of Mobile Insights, a California consulting firm.
The PDA is already capable of taking digital photos, downloading MP3 music from the Internet and using speakers to listen to it.
Purdy predicts that people will be using a speaker/microphone attached to their ear while telephoning via their PDA that uses Bluetooth wireless technology.
However tantalizing the prospect may be for some people, others in the high-tech business believe that the public will still buy their cell phones and personal organizers separately.
“I am not sure people want that all in one device," said Mark Viken, president of Sony's Personal Networks Solutions.
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