Weblicon Technologies AG has concluded a second round of financing. Under the leadership of the consortium of PEPPERMINT. Financial Partners, the investors Belgacom Multimedia Ventures, IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, and PEPPERMINT. make available the total sum of EUR 3.2 million. With the new finance, the Berlin company is going to pursue an offensive growth strategy, step up product and technology development, and further extend the market position.

Socket Communications, Inc. announced that its Empowering Mobility Partner Program (EMP) has grown to more than 900 participants since its launch in February of this year. This base of developers is creating solutions compatible with Socket products or technology. Through EMP, these developers get mutual support to ensure interoperability of products and access to an online forum, which provides a secure site for participants to interact and exchange information.

MARGI Systems announced the latest addition to its Presenter-to-Go product family, a device specifically designed for Sony CLIE handhelds via Memory Stick media slot, available in October 2002. This complete presentation solution is compatible with the full line of Sony CLIE personal entertainment handhelds. It is designed to allow presentations created in PowerPoint or any printable PC application to be transferred directly to the CLIE handheld and displayed via a digital projector in high quality, full-color 1024 x 768 resolution.

Red Mercury, LLC announced the release of AcidImage, designed to enable users to organize, view, and share digital images. Native-format JPEG, BMP, and GIF images can be viewed directly off a memory card without being converted to a proprietary format. For backward compatibility, AcidImage will also view PictureGear Pocket, PhotoSuite, and SplashPhoto images from memory card or RAM.

LandWare released the MONEY Magazine Financial Assistant. Whether you are calculating a loan payment, splitting a restaurant bill, or simply comparing the prices of different sized packages, the MONEY Magazine Financial Assistant is designed to help you make over 150 different financial decisions. The Financial Assistant includes a set of electronic tutorials created by the editors at MONEY Magazine, aimed at helping you invest, save, borrow, and spend more wisely.

Green Maple Publishing has just released a new line of PDA software products into the major retail marketplace. Green Maple products are now available in many national retail and online stores including: MicroCenter, Fry’s Electronics, J&R Computer World, DataVision, Harmony Computers, PCPlus, RCS Computer Experience, as well as the CompuSmart retail chain in Canada.

The strange collective mind of Palm marketing continues to give us great material. Speaking of material, Palm, it seems, is naming their high-end corporate devices “Tungsten,” presumably because Apple’s got titanium. Seriously though, it’s an interesting choice of materials to use as a brand name.

Sure, the word “Tungsten” sounds good and apparently tested well in focus groups. Tungsten has the highest melting point of all elements except carbon. However, with a density of 19.25 g/cu.cm, tungsten is also among the heaviest metals. Interesting, tungsten contains small amounts of carbon and oxygen, which give tungsten metal its considerable hardness and brittleness.

We have to wonder why a maker of very small, very portable devices would name their new line after a brittle, excessively heavy metal?

And this, of course, brings us to Zire, the new brand name for the consumer line. I have to admit that I don’t get it. Is it a play on the word “desire,” does it spark your “ire,” or does it simply reflect your delusions of grandeur, “Sire?”

What do you think of these interesting new names? Share your thoughts on PalmPower’s PowerBoards. We’ll collect some of the most interesting posts and publish them in a later issue. What names would you pick? Can you out-creative the creative folks at Palm? Post your thoughts.

Palm Inc. announced the availability of its Tungsten Mobile Information Management (MIM) Solution. The Tungsten MIM Solution is designed to offer enterprises a complete and secure wireless email and groupware access solution. Earlier this year, the Tungsten MIM Solution was introduced as the Palm Wireless Messaging Solution. This offering has since evolved to provide more than wireless email and is the first product to be announced under Palm’s new business and professional subbrand, Tungsten. The solution provides secure access to corporate email, calendars, contacts, notes, and tasks from leading collaborative systems like Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Domino. The solution also supports access to IMAP4 compliant email systems.

Palm, Inc. announced the creation of two distinct subbrands for its portfolio of handheld products: the Tungsten and Zire families. Tungsten products will provide solutions for mobile professionals and enterprise work forces; Zire handhelds will provide affordable options for individuals to organize their busy lives.

The Palm Tungsten product line will include “industrial-strength handheld hardware and software solutions for mobile professionals and serious business users. These solutions will use cutting-edge wireless and mobile technologies to solve complex technology problems for IT managers seeking to deliver secure data to mobile work forces.”

The Palm Zire product line will offer “snappy personal products that get straight to the point for individuals.”

CommonTime Ltd announced the launch of Cadenza mNotes 2.5.0, the latest version of their software which mobilises Lotus Notes, making it accessible on any Palm handheld. Cadenza mNotes 2.5.0 has an extensive list of features designed to change the way Lotus Notes users communicate and organize their life on the move. Replication/synchronisation technology is used in mNotes 2.5.0, meaning that users can always access the most up-to-date information on their PDA. New features of Cadenza mNotes 2.5.0 include: Cadenza mNotes 2.5.0 is available to single-users, as well as large corporations.