Motorola, Palm To Make PDA-Type Mobile Phone

Motorola and Palm Inc. have announced they will design and produce "smart" mobile phones that incorporate many attributes of Palm's personal digital assistants (PDAs). They are expected to hit the market in early 2002. The companies have agreed to co-develop and co-brand the phones, which will run on the Palm operating system and include Palm and Motorola functions such as HotSync (Palm) and Starfish TrueSync (Motorola) software for synchronization. Schaumburg, Ill.-based Motorola has a minority stake in Santa Clara, Calif.-based Palm, a leading manufacturer of PDAs. "Palm's widely adopted technology will complement our broad line of smart mobile devices, providing further consumer and business access to the vast global network of information and personal interaction," says Merle Gilmore, Motorola executive vice president and president of Motorola's Communications Enterprise.