CHICAGO-At what was overall a relatively slow show in terms of floor traffic, Handspring Inc. took a piece of the spotlight by introducing an attachment to its Visor organizer product that adds voice functionality to the primarily data device at the Personal Communications Industry Association’s GlobalXChange show last week.
Ever since the convergence between the Internet and wireless began, there has been much speculation about what type of devices will use the resulting services. Wireless phones at the time featured too-small screens for effective data access, an issue that continues to dog the industry today.
Analysts and other wireless pundits predicted that many devices would someday fill the market-voice-centric devices with some data capabilities, and data-centric devices with some access to voice. While the former continues to emerge in varying degrees, last week was the first strong example of the latter.
Motorola Inc. also introduced a data-centric device with voice functionality in the form of its V100 product, a two-way text messaging device with GSM connectivity for voice calls, available only in Europe.
Handspring’s attachment is a snap-on module for the Visor’s Springboard expansion slot. Expected to be commercially available by the end of the year for $300, the VisorPhone connects the Visor device to any GSM network provider in the United States, with a European model to come in 2001. The combined solution allows users to access their personal information management functions already stored on the Visor personal digital assistant when making or receiving voice calls. For instance, users may dial directly from their existing address book, as well as assign speed-dial listing.
At the opening keynote at GlobalXChange, Handspring’s founder, chairman and chief product officer, Jeff Hawkins, positioned the VisorPhone as an option to users interested in data but frustrated at its use on phones.
“We have to be careful about getting too excited about these things,” he said. “We have to take things one step at a time.”
Given the state of the industry’s evolution, Hawkins admitted he has a contrary view of what that next step should be, which is a move toward adding voice to data-centric devices rather than the other way around.
“Voice is still the killer app today for mobile devices,” he said.
While complementing the sophisticated features of the new mobile phones, Hawkins said he feels most users don’t employ the devices’ personal information management abilities. Many use their PDAs to store names and addresses and look up this information on their handheld organizer when dialing the phone, as opposed to storing it all on the phone. The same can be said for caller ID features and speed dialing, SMS messages, etc.
The VisorPhone, he explained, is Handspring’s answer to the person who can’t use a phone.
“We didn’t make this stuff up,” he said. “This existed before, but people didn’t know how to use it. We are taking the existing functionality of a voice call network and making it easier to use.”
The VisorPhone also supports SMS messaging, e-mail and, later, full Web-browsing capability.
AirPrime Inc. jumped on the bandwagon with its own flavor of a voice-access module for the Visor with its Wireless Springboard product, which adds CDMA-based voice capabilities to the PDA. The OEM product features dual-band 800MHz-1900 MHz CDMA connection for North American coverage.
Motorola’s V100 is a similar product, although it takes a slightly different approach. While the Visor requires add-on modules for wireless connectivity, the V100 is first a text-messaging device (like its cousin the PageWriter 2000X) but has the option for voice access over GSM networks for the occasional phone call.
The product even includes an add-on speaker phone adapter, so several people could access the applications available on the device’s screen while speaking with a remote third party. The product includes a WQAP Internet browser and voice dialing. Another version of the product is the Accompli 009, which has all the same features but supports GPRS networks instead.
Both Motorola products were introduced in Europe but are expected to make their way to the United States next year.
