IBM sketched out its long-term vision for pervasive computing and announced updates to a stripped-down version of its WebSphere software, which can run on small devices. ZDNet says that IBM also announced partnerships with software companies that are designed to help businesses better manage mobile devices employees use, such as PDAs (personal digital assistants) and mobile phones.

IBM announced a range of product enhancements and partnerships designed to transform the way enterprise applications are delivered to wireless devices. This month, developers will be able to make use of extended Java functions on Palm devices via IBM’s WebSphere Micro Environment. Optimized for Palm’s Tungsten line of handhelds, this is the result of an ongoing relationship with Palm.

PalmSource has announced at its developer seminar in Munich that the next version of its operating system, codenamed Sahara, will be ready on December 29. Brighthand says that Palm OS 6 will offer many features business want, like support for Web services and accessing Microsoft Exchange and Lotus email servers.

Corsoft announces the launch of Aileron 5.0, its wireless email solution for Palm OS handheld devices. Aileron uses a multi-tiered architecture, optimizing network bandwidth and greatly reducing the typical download time for each attached document. Aileron Enterprise Server provides secure and native access to corporate mail servers like Microsoft Exchange.

SupportSoft announced an agreement with IBM that provides product integration and co-marketing for IBM’s Device Management Solutions with SupportSoft’s Mobile Device Management Suite. IBM’s Device Management Platform, part of IBM’s WebSphere Everyplace Server Service Provider Offering software, incorporates IBM Tivoli’s device management technology. The integrated solution features a customer service analyst interface and a communication platform, to enable carriers to more easily diagnose and solve problems on their customers’ PDAs, laptops or mobile phones.

AppForge announced MobileVB 4.0, with support for Palm OS 5 running on Palm Powered mobile devices. MobileVB is a mobile and wireless development tool that integrates into Microsoft Visual Studio. With the addition of Palm OS 5 support, Microsoft developers can create mobile applications using their existing tools and knowledge and deploy those applications on more than 90 percent of the leading mobile and wireless devices.

Paragon Software announced a new wireless game =96 RifleSLUGs-W: Wild Web=20 Wars. RifleSLUGs-W is a sequel of the popular game series RifleSLUGs and=20 RifleSLUGs-II for Palm OS. RifleSLUGs is a reincarnation of well-known PC=20 strategy games concept. It is a step-by-step strategy game in which two=20 armies of slugs (red and yellow) battle for existence.

TERA Technologies launched its ezPCaccess product family at DEMOmobile 2003 today. You can get the The Palm edition of ezPCaccess, which allows access to your office or home PC from any Palm OS based PDA device. This edition also features an interface for Microsoft Outlook. There’s also a Web browser edition available.

Solution Planet announced the first public pre-release (version 0.5) of nsf-on-air — the Mobile Development Kit for Lotus Notes/Domino. nsf-on-air is a Mobile Development Kit (MDK) that is used to create elements that translate the views and forms of a nsf-database to WML pages used on mobile devices.

Borland Software Corporation and PalmSource announced that Borland has licensed the PalmSource software development kits (SDKs) and will support Palm OS development in the Borland C++BuilderX Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and latest Borland Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) solutions for C++.