Nokia to enter PDA market?

DON'T YOU JUST love it when old rumours come up gasping for air? Well, The Business has just revived the rumour that Nokia is interested in the PDA business.

According to the report, Nokia is developing a number of portable computers which will run the Symbian OS and utilise the company's own Series 60 software. The source at Nokia also suggested that one solution being considered is a ruggedised sub-notebook.

Sounds familiar? Well, that's exactly what Psion Teklogix makes. So there may have been some truth in the rumour that Nokia wanted to buy Psion last year. It probably went pear-shaped when Nokia found out that Psion's latest PDA was going to use Windows not Symbian.

Anyway, The INQ does think that Nokia has spotted a gap in the market. There's no decent PDA with a good keyboard - like our trusty old Revo - available in Europe. While in Japan, sub-notebooks are extremely popular.

If Nokia really does enter the PDA market it would be a superb way of taking on Microsoft head-on. A PDA with a stable OS? With good battery life? Now there's a thought. µ

* IN OTHER Nokia news, the Economic News of Taiwan says that the firm is setting up a "content centre" on the island to help create a Series 60 user interface platform. It's pulled in some other big names such as Ho Kuo-Yuan, ATI's chairman. Nokia gave Benqueue (BenQ) and Arima a miss, because they use a Sony Ericsson front end.