Sony points to Palm OS for its handheld

Sony is poised to announce its first foray into the handheld-appliance market at industry gathering PC Expo in New York tomorrow.

The appliance - scheduled for a mid-July launch in Japan - will run on the Palm operating system.

Sony has revealed few details on the device but Takashi Sugiyama, general manager of Sony's network-service business centre, said: "By entering the market, we think we can expand this market tenfold."

The device is not expected to offer wireless connectivity to the internet, but Sugiyama hinted at other features including audio and video capability. He said: "We are certainly looking at audio and video capability as the key to the growth of this market."

Industry analysts expect Sony's adoption of the Palm operating system to be a step further in establishing an industry standard and, as such, a blow to Microsoft and the success of its Pocket PC.

However, Phil Holden, group product manager of mobile devices at Microsoft, said: "Sony is playing 'catch-up'. The Pocket PC is already a multimedia device and is already setting the standard for next-generation devices. We can't wait to see what Sony comes out with. We love competition."