Hitachi Ltd and Sharp Corp have announced plans to jointly develop personal digital assistants and energy saving devices. The agreement was unveiled as part of a broader pact to mutually rationalize the companies’ white goods and audiovisual equipment operations. They have agreed to supply each other with goods on an OEM basis, with Sharp shipping smaller items and Hitachi larger ones.
A joint statement said they hope the joint operations will enable them to pull out of unprofitable product lines and ease the burden of new product development as new environmental laws, effective from 2001, require consumer electronics makers to design products that are easier to recycle and that use far less energy than previous models. The personal digital assistants envisaged by the agreement will integrate state-of-the-art technologies from such products as personal computers, cellular phones and displays, the statement said.
