Handspring Introduces MP3 Add-on

ByABC News
September 6, 2000, 10:56 AM

S A N  J O S E, Calif., Sept. 6 -- A new MP3 player expansion slot for Handspring Visors is poised to hit the market in October, heating up the competition in the booming market of handheld computer devices and their accessories.

Good Technology, Inc. planned today to unveil its SoundsGoodaudioplayer at the DEMO Conference in Pasadena, Calif. The deviceturns a Handspring Visor into a digital music player. With 64megabytes of built-in memory, the company claims it gives the usermore than an hour of music.

Innogear Inc., based in Morgan Hill, started shipping a similarproduct for Handspring users a week ago.

Good Technology, a Redwood City-based developer of add-ons forpersonal digital assistants, is hoping to tap into the scorchingmarket for handhelds. Market researcher Dataquest expects globalsales of computer handhelds to quadruple in the next three years to32 million units worth $7.2 billion.

At the same time, Good Technology is responding to the growingpopularity of MP3 digital music technology. The company said nearlyhalf of the users of Visor have expressed interest in an MP3 modulefor the devices Springboard expansion slot.

Costly Add-on for Inexpensive Visor

Handsprings Visor is a cousin of Palm handheld devices that usethe same operating system, and the Visor has quickly become apopular alternative, grabbing 27 percent of the retail market,according to several research firms. The Visor, which sells forbetween $149 and $249, was the first and, for at least a whilelonger, is the only such handheld to feature an expansion slotcapable of transforming it into everything from an electronic bookto a global positioning device.

Digital music players on handheld devices are nascent but notcompletely novel: The newest generation of PocketPCs made by CompaqComputer Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Casio Computer Co. have thecapability. But unlike the smaller, sleeker Palm devices and theVisor, sales of PocketPCs which sell between $499 and $599arestill struggling. In addition, the MP3 accessory made for the Visorconsumes less power, analysts said.