A step down from a licensee, PiTech will be offering services to other licensees to help produce new Palm OS handhelds. That includes new and varied designs as well as possibly white box Palms.
PalmSource has announced that Portable Innovation Technology ("PiTech") is the first Palm OS System Development Partner. Through this partnership, PiTech will provide a one-stop solution to Palm OS licensees who want to reach the market quickly with their own branded Palm OS devices.
As a Palm OS System Development Partner, PiTech will offer Palm OS licensees a range of development and manufacturing services designed to suit each client's needs and requirements. Clients can engage PiTech for its entire development cycle or select one or more of the service components. For example, a given licensee could contract out to PiTech to develop the hardware for a new device while the licensee develops the software, or it could design the hardware and software itself and farm the mass production of the units out to PiTech. Alternatively, PiTech could develop the entire device and the licensee can simply rebadge and sell the handheld under its own name.
The latter option opens up the possibility for "white box" Palm OS handhelds; products that are essentially identical in both internal hardware and external design, forcing competitors to compete on software bundle and price. The PC market has become predominantly white box in recent years, and lately the Pocket PC market has had a growing white box trend. Although a full licensee rather than a System Development Partner, HandEra has been offering similar services to other companies for a while now, including AlphaSmart, who outsourced the development of their unique screen API on the Dana to HandEra.
No announcement was made as to which licensees, current or future, would be partnering with PiTech.
 |
|
|
|
|
|
Archive