NEW YORK -- In the battle for handheld dominance, Palm this week at PC Expo rolled out a number of enhancements to expand the functionality of its namesake PDA, including an upgrade to give Palm wireless Internet access via cell phones.

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Palm officials Tuesday here introduced its Mobile Internet Kit, a software upgrade that lets the Palm use the dialer of a cell phone over an infrared link between the two devices. With a connection to the Internet, users access wireless-enabled Web sites, as well as mail and messaging, officials said.

The kit will cost less than $50 and be available by the end of the year. The software kit, which will enable bandwidths of 7-9kbps, will not work on versions of the Palm that cannot be upgraded to Palm OS 3.5.

"We're taking the 7 million and more Palm users worldwide and [giving them] Web clipping, mail, messaging, and WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) access because we want our customers, especially in Europe, to access WAP content," said Alan Kessler, Palm's COO in Santa Clara, Calif., adding that performance will be comparable to the Palm VII.

Kessler also predicted that retrofitting mobile access to existing Palms will accelerate the development of applications.

In an effort to improve the end user navigation, Palm introduced a mobile portal where end users can choose which Web sites will appear on their PDA (personal digital assistant). Palm signed on 25 more content providers as part of today's announcements.

"With the proliferation of content and solutions on the Internet, it's increasingly important to provide users the ability to organize and customize their user experience," said Barry Cottle, COO of Palm's Content and Access division.

Finally, Palm sought to improve the expandability of future Palms by announcing its participation in the Secure Digital Association consortium, which is developing a stamp-sized memory card that will snap into future versions of the Palm. The memory upgrade can store up to 64MB of memory, as well as applications and I/O.

"Not only will databases appear instantly in a Palm but applications will as well," Kessler said. "So not only is it to store and back up data, but for applications as well."

Systems are expected to ship with the expansion capability early next year, officials said.

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