Sony Introducing New PDA Line

T O K Y O, Sept. 8 -- Japan’s market for handheld digitalorganizers will enter a new round on Saturday, when Sony Corpjoins the ring with CLIE, a new unit that adds video playback tothe usual array of functions.

The launch of the CLIE (which is pronounced “klee-ay” andstands for Communication, Link, Information and Entertainment)takes Sony one step closer toward the integration of itselectronics empire.

Sony’s new PDA, or “personal digital assistant” as thedigital organizers are increasingly being called, will be able toplay video clips and link in to the Internet via cell phones.

“We’re selling a concept,” said Tetsuo Kanno, a Sonyspokesman for the new product. “We see the CLIE evolving from abusiness tool into an entertainment tool.”

Sony’s confidence in its aim to capture a share of thegrowing PDA market, despite being a late entrant, is partly areflection of Japan’s well-known enthusiasm for digital gadgets.

Simpler versions of today’s digital personal organizers werebeing sold more than a decade ago, and the recent explosivegrowth of Internet-enabled mobile phones has already heralded thearrival of wireless digital organizers.

Snazzy Cell Phones PDA-like

In some ways, PDAs are already competing with Japan’s snazzycell phones, which already have some of the digital organizerfunctions built in.

Technology data firm IDC Japan says that handheld computersales were dampened in 1999 due to brisk growth of Web-connectedmobile phones.

IDC Japan says 1.3 million handheld computing devices weresold in Japan in 1999, and that this would more than triple tofour million units per year in 2004. By comparison, there arealready more than 15 million people logged on to the Internet viatheir cell phones in Japan.

The market for handheld computers in the United States isestimated at some three million to four million units, followedby Europe’s two million to three million.