Ecommerce in the Palm of your hand

Wireless buying, bidding and broking using Palm pilots kicked off in America yesterday with the US roll-out of the new Palm VII, the first wireless capable product in the Palm range. Using a cut down version of HTML, e-businesses are able to offer services direct to Palm users whether in their tractors or cappuccino bars. 3Com, which owns Palm, has stock broker Fidelity, on-line auction house eBay and e-tailer Amazon.com as its first three partners providing services. Europeans will have to wait until at least next year for anything similar however, as the Palm VII is grooved into American wireless protocols, not compatible with Euro-standard GSM. At present content providers are not being charged for the service although this may change next year when Palm Computing, 3Com's handheld unit, is being spun off with 20 per cent floated under the guidance of an independent management team. The Palm VII retails at $499. Price cuts for some existing products were also unveiled -- the Palm V down $80 to $369; Palm IIIx down $70 to $299 -- and special editions of other products -- including a memory enhanced Palm Vx. ®