IBM Corp will this week announce Simon, its entry into the Personal Digital Assistant market with a product that will initially be marketed by BellSouth Corp, Atlanta, the Wall Street Journal reported. The IBM product differs from most of the current offerings in that it is first and foremost a cellular telephone, but adds computing capability, although there is no word on what chip IBM is using. It is 8 long and weighs 1 lb, and is the forerunner for a more powerful version that IBM will offer under its own name next year. It was designed by an IBM Personal Computer Co team in Boca Raton, Florida, but will be made for IBM by Mitsubishi Consumer Electronics of America Inc’s plant in Braselton, Georgia, the paper hears. IBM will get a small cut of the monthly income that BellSouth takes in from people using Simon on cellular and paging networks, the Journal says, giving IBM a detailed look at what users do with the thing. It will initially cost a daunting $1,000, but will come ready to make phone calls and send and receive electronic mail over BellSouth’s cellular network. It can also send and receive facsimile messages, and a plug-in card will add paging via BellSouth’s MobileComm paging system. It uses flat, touch-screen keys for dialling, includes diary and scheduling and the address book is includes autodialling when the chosen name is touched. Simon stores handwriting but does not convert it to text character.
