Palm, Inc. announced that it received a ruling from the Internal Revenue Service that a proposed distribution of shares of PalmSource, Inc., Palm’s majority-owned operating-system software business subsidiary, will be tax-free to Palm, Inc. and its United States shareholders for U.S. federal income tax purposes. Palm expects to distribute the shares of PalmSource, which develops and licenses the Palm operating system, to Palm, Inc. shareholders in the first half of calendar 2003, pending approval of the distribution from the Palm Board of Directors and filing of the appropriate documents with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

CRMdaily has an article on IBM Mobile Notes, which works on all three major platforms for PDAs, as well as WAP phones.

CNET News.com has an article on the annual Consumer Electronics Show and says getting digital content into portable devices will be a key theme throughout the year.

PalmSource announced that Korean wireless communication devices manufacturer HuneTec has licensed the Palm OS. HuneTec will integrate the Palm OS platform with the communications features of the wireless ReFLEX network provided by WebLink Wireless to create a new class of enterprise ready 2way messaging devices.

Palm Digital Media Inc. reports steady growth and owes it to an expanded product line, two major distribution partners, and dozens of new ebook retailers.

Fictionwise.com announced its annual awards for the top selling and highest rated ebooks and authors for 2002. Best selling science fiction author Lois McMaster Bujold is Fictionwise

AvantGo, Inc. and salesforce.com announced AvantGo Mobile Sales for salesforce.com, a My AvantGo channel that enables salesforce.com customers to view, update, and manage salesforce.com information any time, from any location on their handheld devices–with or without wireless connections.

Fun Communications announced that funSMS 3 and funBOOK are now optimised for Palm PDAs with high-resolution display. The new versions are especially optimised for the new features of the Tungsten T: Bluetooth, high-resolution graphics, and support for 5-way-navigator. funSMS 3 is used for sending and managing SMS messages, and funBOOK, which allows a mobile phone

Vindigo announced the addition of new content from Harden

PalmSource welcomed the first Palm OS handheld integrated with Global Positioning System capabilities–the iQue 3600 from Garmin. Garmin International Inc., a unit of Garmin Ltd., will give users the first handheld device with built-in GPS navigation functionality, and Garmin will showcase prototypes of the iQue 3600 with Palm OS 5 this week at CES at Booth #29093 – South Hall 3&4 of the Las Vegas Convention Center.