"The big difference between the previous generations and what we've done now is that we've actually gone to a significantly more narrow, more phone-like design. You can see it just looks like a phone. Secondly it has a built in QWERTY keyboard, instead of a typical dial pad. What this really enables you to do is... not only is it great for text entry, but it also serves as just a great way just to use your phone."
Handspring... which will become part of the Palm hardware company by the end of the year... faces an ever increasing amount of competition in the combination phone PDA business... from Kyocera, Samsung and others ... including in the near future new devices using Microsoft's SmartPhone software...
"There is a lot of competition in this area. I think that we're still relatively early in this market. Handspring's been at it for a couple generations. I think we've been able to learn from our previous experience and really apply it to this device."
Pricing is dependent upon carriers including ... Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile and Cingular... but the Treo 600 should sell for about 500 dollars. Bloomberg Boot Camp, I'm Fred Fishkin