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To: Bruno Cipolla who wrote (8142)	11/16/1999 6:51:00 AM
From: John Carragher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 60323

Sony and 3Com to Develop New Palm Products Together By EVAN RAMSTAD Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL LAS VEGAS -- Sony Corp., eager to show that Internet connections will occur beyond the personal computer, said it will work with 3Com Corp. on the next generation of Palm Computing Inc. products. The relationship is one of several developments Sony Chief Executive Officer Nobuyuki Idei revealed in a speech at Comdex, the first time the head of a major electronics firm has addressed the computer industry's biggest convention. Under the agreement, Sony will be able to use Palm's operating system, the key to the simple operation of a variety of handheld computers on the market today. Palm will use Sony's flash-memory technology, known as Memory Stick. The agreement represents Sony's stake in the rapidly evolving world of so-called information appliances, which connect to the Internet more simply than the personal computer does. Mr. Idei also said he believes the proliferation of digital products is, at last, making the company's music and movie operations work more closely with its electronics-manufacturing business. As evidence, he introduced two portable digital-music players that comply with copyright protections sought by record labels, including Sony's own labels. One is the Memory Stick Walkman, which has a slot to play music from Sony's gumstick-size Memory Stick. The product is the size of a candy bar, smaller than many other digital-music players already in stores. The second is Music Click, which is the size of a pen, and uses 64 megabytes of built-in memory, enough for two hours of music. He also showed a smaller chip-size device that will hold even more music data, about 160 megabytes, when it goes on sale late next year. The gizmo measures eight-tenths of an inch by 2 inches and is just one-seventh of an inch thick, just large enough to plug in a headphone. Sony hasn't priced or even named it. "I call this 'audio on silicon,' " Mr. Idei said. Sony's announcements make its OpenMG format a serious contender in a race to determine how digital music will be stored and protected on the Internet. Several other companies are pushing rival formats, including Microsoft Corp., International Business Machines Corp., RealNetworks Inc., Liquid Audio Inc. and InterTrust Technologies Corp. But Sony cut deals with all of those companies to establish ways for their technologies to work with the new Music Clip and other Sony products. Microsoft, in particular, has widely been seen as an increasing opponent of Sony in consumer electronics, but the companies worked until 1 a.m. Sunday on a deal to ensure that recordings in Microsoft's format can play on the Music Clip, said Will Poole, a general manager in Microsoft's streaming-media division, during the Webnoize trade show in Los Angeles. Microsoft rival RealNetworks also reached a deal with Sony over the weekend.