CNET News.com reports Palm cut 19 percent of its work force, or about 200 workers. According to the article, the work force reduction leaves the company with about 900 total employees in its hardware division, Palm Solutions Group, and its operating system subsidiary, PalmSource.

Gary W. Ankney of edupalm.org has writes in with a report on Sony’s reorganization of the CLIE line:

On the heels of the introduction of two new models, the NZ90 and SJ33, and the phasing out of the T655, two (maybe even three) other CLIEs leave the Sony lineup. The SL10 shows a price increase from $129.99 to $149.99 (the same price as the SJ30). But don’t worry, you won’t pay that price–the purchase link for the SL10 has disappeared from Sony’s Web site. Also missing a purchase link is the SJ30. You can still order the SJ20 if you can wait until “on or about March 10, 2003.” If the SJ20 doesn’t return and no low-end replacements materialize, Sony will not have a PDA priced under $300 ($299.99).

Palm, Inc. announced that Todd Bradley, Palm Solutions Group president and chief executive officer, will present at the Morgan Stanley Semiconductor and Systems Conference in Dana Point, California, on Wednesday, March 5, at 10 a.m. ET. A live webcast and archive of the presentation will be available to the public on Palm’s Web site in the Investor Relations section.

Palm, Inc. announced the availability of the Palm Tungsten W handheld running on AT&T Wireless’ next-generation GSM/GPRS network. With carrier activation, the data-centric Tungsten W handheld is designed to provide users with a sophisticated combination of wireless email, text messaging, Internet browsing, phone functionality, and business applications on the GSM/GPRS network.

Elegant Algorithms, the developer of the compression utility FlyZip XR for Palm OS handhelds and smartphones, released a new version of FlyZip ZR with expanded support of Palm OS handhelds and increased compression/decompression speed.

AvantGo, Inc. released results from its 2003 Mobile Lifestyle Survey–delivered to users on their mobile devices to determine their preferences, buying patterns, interests, and activities. The survey sought to uncover trends among those who regularly carry and use a personal digital assistant (PDA). The results may surprise brand managers and marketers looking to reach that key male, age 25-50 audience. The study found that mobile device users in 2003 are mostly male, well educated, and well paid with varied interests in sports and travel, for example.

Handspring, Inc. and Sprint announced an aggressive pricing promotion designed to save customers up to $100 on the Treo 300, a combination mobile phone, Palm OS organizer, and wireless email device available exclusively on the Enhanced Sprint Nationwide PCS Network, featuring PCS VisionSM.

ePocrates and Techneos Systems, a developer of mobile survey software, are collaborating to bring the power of point-of-experience data collection to the healthcare market research arena. Over 79,000 ePocrates physicians and tens of thousands of other healthcare professionals have opted into the ePocrates Honors program, which enables participants to earn honoraria for engaging in market research. ePocrates believes that the 35% response rate observed for Web-based surveys will hold true for handheld data collection as it will greatly simplify participation in patient encounter studies and other appropriate point-of-experience surveys.

MARGI Systems announced its Presenter-to-Go software is available with the Tungsten W. Presenter-to-Go allows presentations to be created in PowerPoint or any printable PC application and easily transferred to a Tungsten W and displayed via a digital projector in high-quality, full-color resolution.

Palm, Inc. announced that the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a decision by the District Court of the Western District of New York that Palm infringed a Xerox Corp. patent. But the Court of Appeals also remanded the case back to the District Court to examine the validity of the patent in question.

Xerox filed the suit in April 1997 alleging that Palm’s Graffiti handwriting recognition software infringed a Xerox United States patent relating to computerized recognition of handwriting.

In remanding the case to the District Court, the Court of Appeals yesterday asked the lower court to conduct a complete validity analysis of Xerox’s patent in question. While the Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court’s conclusion that Palm infringes the claims of the patent, it noted that the infringement was based on a broad construction of the patent, which “has implications for the issue of validity.” The Court of Appeals stated in its opinion that Palm “has made strong arguments that the asserted claims, as construed, are invalid…”