HANNOVER, Germany-The march of new, advanced devices continued in conjunction with the CeBIT trade show, with Samsung, Siemens, NEC and Symbol all making announcements.
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. made perhaps the most interesting announcement with plans to sell a new style of wireless devices based on technology from startup IXI Mobile Inc. Samsung said it licensed IXI’s Personal Mobile Gateway technology for use in its new SGH-X410 mobile device, which features GSM/GPRS support, a color screen, Bluetooth capability and 40 polyphonic ring tones. Using IXI’s technology, the device can work as a connection point for a variety of Bluetooth devices, including watches, pens, phones, messaging terminals, gaming devices and cameras. All the devices can wirelessly work together and then interact with wide area networks.
Interestingly, IXI has previously worked with Sanyo, although no commercial products have been announced.
Also at the CeBIT show, NEC announced its third European i-mode device for use in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium. NEC’s n31i includes i-mode support, as well as an integrated camera, Java technology and multimedia messaging service capabilities.
Separately, Siemens also released a European i-mode handset, its S55 mobile phone. The phone features a color display, GPRS, MMS technology and 16-voice polyphonic ring tones. Siemens also released its M55, with a color display, MMS and Java technology. It will sell in Europe, the Middle East and Asia in June.
Finally, wireless enterprise company Symbol Technologies Inc. introduced two new rugged handheld computers featuring GPRS wide area network capabilities. The PDT 8037 and PDT 8056 feature bar-code scanning and wireless communications. The 8037 features Microsoft Corp.’s Pocket PC operating system.
