Handhelds get ready for a chat

"Wallaby" software will combine computer and phone technology, says IT writer PETER GRIFFIN.

The future of handheld computing may lie in a sleek new device soon to hit the market, and, oddly enough, named after a furry Australian mammal.

A couple of months after Microsoft unveiled its beefed-up handheld operating system - Pocket PC 2002 - the software giant is adding mobile phone software to the mix to create "Wallaby".

HTC, the company that makes Compaq's handheld iPaq, is so far the only hardware vendor signed up to produce the devices running Wallaby, which incorporates technology to run on both Telecom's and Vodafone's "2.5G" mobile networks.

A number of mobile carriers plan to sell the devices under their own brand name next year.

New Zealander Craig Dewar, marketing manager at Microsoft's Seattle-based mobility division, said the inclusion of mobile software and a built-in antenna would not bump up the price of the handhelds. In most cases, the carriers would subsidise their cost to attract subscribers onto their 2.5G networks.

"These data services will be the basis of their next lot of revenue streams," said Mr Dewar. "They'll sell for around $US500 ($1203) to $US600 ($1443), like the handhelds on the market now."

Mr Dewar said O2, BT's newly spun-off mobile arm formerly known as BT CellNet, would start offering Wallaby devices in February under the name XDA.

Specifications for HTC's handhelds have them running on the Intel StrongARM 206 Mhz processor - as the current handhelds supporting Pocket PC 2002 do.

The devices would have 32MB of both read only and random access memory, with battery life supporting 3.5 hours of talk time and 150 hours standby.

The usual components of Pocket PC would be present, with Media Player or the Pocket versions of Word, Excel and MSN Messenger accessible while the user talks on the phone using a headset. With Wallaby, any WAV audio file could double as a ring tone and unified messaging would allow voice mail, e-mail and text messages through the one device.

Server Active Sync would provide access to e-mail accounts, hosted on a corporate network via the next generation network. The software would also support conference calls.

"You can call a friend, put them on hold, call another and begin a conference call," said Mr Dewar. "Up to seven people can be conferenced in, depending on the robustness of the network you are using."

New Zealanders' only exposure currently to an intelligent two-in-one is the Kyocera Smartphone, which combines a handheld based on the Palm platform and a handset on Telecom's 027 network.

But the Smartphone is an early step in the evolution of next-generation phones.

Handspring is soon to release a far more advanced device based on the Palm platform and known as the Treo.

The Treo will come with 16MB of memory and include a Vodafone network module, upgradable to work on high-speed mobile networks.

"The Treo is a big improvement," said Mr Dewar. "It does a good job of voice, but it hasn't got the richness of data."

Wallaby would form the basis of Microsoft's two-in-one strategy, but its "Stinger" software, a cut-down version of Pocket PC based on Windows CE 3.0, would become a contender in the smartphone market, where phones would remain the size they are now.

Stinger software has been licensed to HTC, British-based mobile manufacturer Sendo and Samsung. Carriers Telefonica, Vodafone and Australia's Telstra will be among the first to offer the devices.

Mr Dewar said the separate markets for smartphones and handhelds with built-in phone modules were likely to grow alongside each other.

"We're hedging our bets a bit, but it's more scientific than that. We've really got to cater for a variety of devices."

Microsoft is showing the new devices to Vodafone and Telecom, but they are unlikely to be available in New Zealand until well into next year.