Translating the Palm OS into thousands of Chinese characters by the end of the year is a big challenge, but it is probably not the biggest one facing Taiwanese electronics giant Acer.
By the fourth quarter, Acer plans to introduce its first Palm-based handheld, a model with built-in support for wireless data as well as both traditional and simplified Chinese characters.
Acer's business has continued to weaken this year, with the company warning in the past week that overall group sales will fall short of prior estimates. The company said sales of its branded goods will fall as well.
"Demand in the US market is declining at a rate faster than we had expected," Acer CEO Wang Cheng-Tang was quoted as saying in press reports.
To help offset slowing hardware sales, Acer is looking to expand into services and other areas.
For example, Acer envisions the Palm-based handheld as the start of a broader mobile data business, and it plans to launch that device with wireless Internet service and access to corporate data in conjunction with PDA Hub, another Taiwanese company.
The company has not yet set pricing for the device or the service, saying it wants to better understand customers' needs.
