Palm's Asia-Pacific operation is set reveal Monday whether Australia will be included in the company's aggressive push to capture the mass-market.
Palm CEO Todd Bradley told ZDNet UK that a consumer device to be sold for less than US$100 would be one of three new devices expected to be released in the US, October.
Palm first mentioned the devices earlier this year at an investor conference in New York City.
Bradley said Palm had spent the last 16 months positioning its operation to grow and the consumer handheld is the cornerstone of the company's strategy to expand its customer-base.
The handheld company hopes the new low-end model will help it sell its digital organisers to people who traditionally have not bought them.
"The general consumer wants something that will help them organise their life, so the challenge was to redesign the product and make it more compelling for new customers," said Bradley.
Palm's new models come as the handheld market continues to decline. According to research firm Gartner, worldwide handheld shipments declined in the second quarter by 3.5 percent compared with the second quarter of 2001, dropping to 2.7 million units.
Analysts have said some buyers are waiting on new units that will incorporate Palm's beefed up OS 5--released to developers in June--but many executives at handheld companies still see growth potential in the market for low-end devices.
Bradley declined to reveal more details about the budget-device ahead of its launch, but sources say it will run Palm OS 4.1.
The two other devices to be launched will be aimed at the high-end market. Palm's strategy: give existing Palm users something that will compel them to upgrade.
"A lot of people didn't see reason to upgrade to the Palm m500," Bradley said.
Analysts have criticised Palm for being slow to introduce new features--such as a digital audio player, camera and high-resolution colour displays--which licensees, such as Sony, have already added to their devices.
The Palm OS 5 will be included in one of the two higher-end Palm new releases, according to sources. Palm OS 5 was developed for ARM-based processors, and adds support for bigger displays--up to 320 by 320 pixels--than previous versions, as well as support for Bluetooth and wireless networking.
"This is not an evolutionary product--it is revolutionary," Bradley said. "Everything is new, including the form factor."
Palm has licensed OS 5 to other handheld makers who are set to launch devices based on the new operating system. Palm itself is in the process of splitting itself into two units, for hardware and software.
ZDNet Australia's Andrew Colley contributed to this report
