QUALCOMM Releases Smart Phone

QUALCOMM Inc. has released the pdQ smart phone, which combines the functionality of a CDMA digital phone and a pen-based organizer in a single 15.7 x 6.7 x 3.5 cm unit.

The new smart phone was developed using 3Com's Palm Computing platform. By employing this platform, the phone can access more than 1,000 productivity applications, such as enterprise information management, scheduling, and groupware.

The pdQ smart phone includes three QUALCOMM developed applications for short messaging service (SMS) alert management, e-mail, and web browsing. In addition, this unit features a flip-down phone keypad for easy call dialing and a 160 x 240 pixel liquid crystal display (LCD) touch screen for the display of information and data entry.

QUALCOMM will run trials on a single-mode and dual-mode version of the pdQ smart phone in the fourth quarter of 1998. Commercial availability is expected in the first half of 1999.