Sony unveils content site for Palm PDAs

'Communication Linkage for Information and Entertainment'

By Tony Smith • Get more from this author

Posted in Music and Media, 18th August 2000 10:00 GMT

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Sony will next month launch a Web-based content service for its upcoming Palm-based PDAs - or Personal Entertainment Organisers, as the Japanese giant calls them.

The service, CLIE Plaza, will open on 9 September - the date of the PDA's Japan debut. Sony will offer two PEG devices: the monochrome PEG-S300 and the colour PEG-S500C. The US and European launches will take place later in the year.

CLIE stands for "Communication Linkage for Information and Entertainment", Sony tells us. CLIE Plaza will feature news, e-zines, comic books, videos and still images, all of which can be downloaded to a Sony or other Palm-based PDA whose OS has been upgraded with Sony's multimedia extensions.

Some of the services CLIE Plaza will offer are free, others aren't. The site shows the way Sony views online digital content e-commerce developing, particularly for the broadband entertainment services it plans to launch next year primarily for PlayStation 2 owners. Leveraging device sales to promote higher margin service business, in other words - a trick learned from the original PlayStation, where the money comes from the games, not the console. ®