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TAIPEI, TAIWAN - Acer Inc. has announced a licensing deal for Palm Inc.'s operating system that Acer hopes will propel it ahead of a host of other Asian companies seeking to break into China's market for personal digital assistants.
Acer is the first Taiwanese manufacturer to obtain rights to use the Palm OS in its ownbrand PDA, which will be launched in Taiwan in the fourth quarter and in China in the first quarter of 2002. Few details of the PDA's cost or specifications were provided, and Acer said it will not offer projected sales figures until the end of the year.
But the company did say the unit will have wireless functionality and stressed that mobile data services will be an integral part of its strategy for making money in the increasingly pricecometitive PDA marketplace.
Acer, cited by International Data Corp. as Taiwan's largest PC maker, has licensed rights for the Palm OS through 2005. The deal is nonexclusive and covers Taiwan, Hong Kong and China. Palm would not say how long Acer will have the license to itself for these areas. "There are other partners and other opportunities and we continue [the] dialogue," said Alan Kessler, general manager of Palm's Platform Solutions Group.
Acer's...