Palm unveils Vodaphone Treo deal in Europe
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Palm Inc. PALM.O on Tuesday unveiled   a new smart phone under a partnership with British mobile phone   giant Vodafone Plc VOD.L, marking Palm's biggest effort to   get a foothold in the European market.
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Debuts at under Â£300, just Palm has formally announced the availability of the Palm OS-based Treo 680 smart phone in the UK. The handset will go on sale today for around Â£299 - Â£30 less than the company recently began taking pre-orders for.â¦
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PalmOne today unveiled its latest addition to the Treo Smartphone range, the Treo 650 targeted at mobile professionals. Available as either a digital dual-band or quad-band world phone, the Palm OS-based device
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(InfoWorld) - Vodafone Group plans to launch several phones for holiday shoppers in Europe, including a high-end, touch-screen rival toÂ Apple's iPhone. The British mobile phone operator has an exclusive agreement to offer theÂ F700 smartphone from Samsung Electronics, said Jens Schulte-Bokum, head of the global terminal division at Vodafone. The F700 is based on proprietary technology developed by Samsung. The phone, which Vodafone plans to customize and co-brand, has been referred to by industry pundits as an "iPhone killer." The F700 has touch-screen capabilities and plays audio and video files. But unlike the iPhone, the device has a pull-down QWERTY keyboard and support for 3G (third-generation) and HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access), which has speeds theoretically as high as 7.2Mbps. Schulte-Bokum declined to comment on whether Vodafone has plans to offer the iPhone, whichÂ Apple expects to launch in EuropeÂ in the coming weeks, although he did comment on its lack of 3G capability. "We like the iPhone. We think it's a unique user experience and we applaud Apple for what they're doing in the industry as a new starter," he said. "But we regret that the iPhone, initially, won't support 3G, which we believe is necessary to deliver a compelling music and Internet experience." Of the more than 25 new handsets, including the F700, that Vodafone will launch ahead of the important holiday shopping season, 13 will support HSDPA. All of the planned new handsets will be 3G-enabled. No pricing information was available. Phones will be available beginning later this month, but a schedule of exactly which phones will be released and when was not provided. Vodafone will introduce two handsets using the Windows Mobile operating system: the Vodafone-branded 920, which is manufactured by Taiwan's High Tech Computer (HTC); and the co-branded i620v from Samsung. In addition to Windows Mobile phones, the South Korean manufacturer will also deliver two new handsets based on the Series 60 platform from Nokia. The Vodafone manager also declined to comment on whether Vodafone, which had an exclusive agreement to launch Palm's Treo smartphone in Europe, would offer a new version of the phone, to be announced on Wednesday. "We are still in discussions with Palm to refresh that lineup," Schulte-Bokum said. Palm also declined to comment. Also missing from the pre-holiday product launch are handsets based on the Linux operating system. "We expect to offer Linux-based phones, but not until spring or early summer of 2008," Schulte-Bokum said, adding that the company is a founding member of the LiMo initiative, which aims to push the standardization and adoption of the open-source operating system on mobile phones. In addition to the new handsets, Vodafone also plans to offer MusicStation, the music download service provided by Omnifone Ltd. Initially available only in the U.K., MusicStation will offer customers unlimited music downloads of more than 1 million titles directly to the internal memory or storage cards on their handsets for Â£1.99 ($4.03 ) per week, said Tim Yates, chief marketing officer of Vodafone UK. To keep prices low, Vodafone has chosen to limit service and not allow users to copy downloaded tunes to other devices, such as PCs, according to Al Russel, head of content services at Vodafone UK. Vodafone plans a premium service that, for an additional fee, will allow users to synchronize the content on their handsets with their PCs, he said.
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A new Palm Treo will be sold in Europe and South Africa for now that has a full keyboard, and runs Windows Mobile 6.
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The palmOne Treo 650 smartphone is now available for pre-order from the palmOne store. Prices range from $449 with a new service plan to $599 with an existing one, all orders from the palmOne store come with free shipping.
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InfoWorld - As part of a strategy to generate greater revenue from mobile data services, Vodafone Group has collaborated with Palm to launch a smartphone modeled after the&#160;Treo 750v&#160;but at a fraction of the price and with a newly designed user interface.
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Vodafone 750v gets HSDPA, too Palm has posted a free Windows Mobile 6 Pro upgrade for its Vodafone-branded Windows Mobile 5-based smartphone, the Treo 750v. The update also brings HSPDA high-speed download technology to the 3G phone.â¦
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British mobile phone giant Vodafone has launched its first self-branded low-cost third generation (3G) mobile  handsets which will be rolled out in Europe from October.
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(InfoWorld) - As part of a strategy to generate greater revenue from mobile data services, Vodafone Group has collaborated with Palm to launch a smartphone modeled after theÂ Treo 750vÂ but at a fraction of the price and with a newly designed user interface. Vodafone will exclusively sell theÂ Palm Treo 500v, which debuts in Europe in October, for three months, after which the handset will be available to other operators and retail outlets, in Europe and Asia, Roy Bedlow, vice president and general manager of Palm Europe, said Wednesday. Vodafone had a similar agreement with Palm when the operator launched the Treo 750v last year. Pricing of the 500v will vary according to market. The handset will be available free or for a small fee together with a 12- to 18-month contract in the U.K., according to Vodafone spokeswoman Helen Brockett. In Germany, pricing for the handset will begin at â¬30 ($41) and increase slightly according to the conditions of the operator's two-year contracts. By comparison, the Treo 750v sold for more than â¬500 with a two-year contract in Germany when it was launched. However, unlike the Treo 750v, which is targeted primarily at business users, the 500v lacks touchscreen capabilities, largely to lower the handset's cost, Bedlow said. The phone runs Microsoft Windows Mobile 6 Standard operating system, which doesn't support touchscreen capability, unlike the Professional version used in the 750v model. Although the Treo 500v runs on 3G (third-generation) networks, it doesn't support the more recent version HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) protocol, again mostly for cost reasons, according to Bedlow. But the new smartphone is packed with a few features missing in the 750v, including a new interface designed to give users faster and easier access to Vodafone Live mobile Internet applications. The applications are shown in a carousel that users can manipulate for easy navigation, according to Bedlow. In addition to Live, the carousel includes a number of applications such as Google Maps, YouTube and eBay. The Treo 500v is designed for one-hand use, according to Bedlow. Like the Treo 750v, the 500v supports Microsoft Direct Push technology to deliver Outlook mail, as well as Vodafone's own push e-mail service. Users can also configure the handset to send and receive e-mail from the Vodafone account or from other e-mail accounts. "With the Treo 500v, Vodafone wants to broaden its user base for mobile data services such as the Internet and e-mail," Bedlow said. "The handset makes more features of high-end mobile phones available to more users." The new smartphone has 150MB of internal memory and a slot for a microSD expansion card. It is also equipped with Bluetooth wireless technology. As part of the European rollout, Vodafone will offer the Treo 500v next month in Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, and the U.K., with other European countries as well as the Asia-Pacific region to follow, according to Bedlow. The Treo 500v will not be available in the U.S., although Palm is planning new devices later this year for North American market, according to a company spokesman. Â
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Palm Inc.  on Wednesday  introduced a compact portable computer to accompany its Treo  smartphone, seeking to regain its competitive edge in the  crowded high-end handheld device market.
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(InfoWorld) - Recent reports that Nokia is in talks to buy Palm surprise some analysts, who nonetheless said some type of buyout might make sense and could even be a good thing for customers. According to news reports, the pioneering handset maker has been talking with possible suitors, and Nokia has emerged as the frontrunner for an acquisition, though investors might simply take the company private. Earlier reports said Motorola wanted to buy Palm. Palm is profitable and increasing sales but faces tough competition and has stumbled recently. It has sold fewer devices than analysts expected in recent quarters, in part because of delays in getting products out, said Casey Ryan of Nollenberger Capital Partners in San Francisco. New products from Research In Motion and other rivals have also eaten into Palm's market share, Ryan said. The whole high-end phone category is drawing many new entrants with flashy devices, including Apple with its iPhone. Palm was instrumental in creating the market for PDAsÂ in the 1990s but has moved with the rest of the handheld business to devices that can also be used as phones. Its Treo smartphones, which come with either the Palm OS or the MicrosoftÂ Windows Mobile platform, are now Palm's bread and butter. A Palm purchase by Nokia would mark a sharp turn for the Finnish cell-phone giant, analysts said. Nokia is focused on the OS developed by Symbian, of which it is a major owner, and its own operating systems, Needham's Ryan said. Although it has had trouble selling its high-end phones in some areas outside Europe, such as the U.S., Nokia has always insisted its operating systems were better than the competition's. Bringing the Palm and Microsoft platforms into its lineup would be like Apple's chief Steve Jobs unveiling a Windows PC, he said. "To me, it would seem to be a very challenging press conference," Ryan said. Even if Nokia swallowed hard and admitted it needed Palm OS and Windows Mobile, the company would be faced with steep hurdles in corporate integration, he added. A private buyout would make more sense, the analysts said. Palm is a basically sound company in a growing industry and could appreciate strongly over the next few years, according to Ryan. A reported price of $20 per share seems reasonable, he said. On Thursday, Palm's shares (PALM) closed at $16.49, down $0.06. Private investors could turn out to be heroes to Palm OS users, according to Greengart. They could shield Palm from the harsh glare of quarterly earnings expectations, possibly freeing management to make the big investment required to bring Palm OS up to date, he added. Despite several changes in direction and ownership over the past few years, the software has remained largely the same except for the addition of video capability, he said.
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Palm has announced its first non-touchscreen smartphone for Windows Mobile 6. Beginning in October, the Treo 500v will be available to Vodafone customers in Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, the UK, and South Africa.
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Cell phone giant Vodafone Group PLC, which has spent years struggling to recoup billions spent on 3G licences, finally launched the cutting-edge service Wednesday in much of Europe and introduced or beefed up its operation in a dozen other countries.
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Treo, a maker of Palm OS-based smartphones, entered a licensing agreement with Microsoft to allow the next generation of its phones to link up with the ActiveSync technology in Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, the companies said Tuesday.
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Long-time rivals PalmOne (Nasdaq: PALM) and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) have announced a licensing agreement that will enable the next generation of PalmOne's Treo smartphones to work directly with Microsoft's Exchange 2003 e-mail system.
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In a completely expected announcement, palmOne has formally announced the Treo 650. There are few, if any surprises, considering they&#39;ve done an amazingly bad job of protecting against leaks.