Due to the Thanksgiving holiday in the US, news will not be posted on Thursday and Friday. News will resume on Monday November 29.

Qualcomm announced the launch of direct sales via the Internet of the Qualcomm pdQ smartphone, the digital wireless phone and pen-based organizer that integrates Qualcomm’s CDMA technology with 3Com’s Palm Computing platform. Telstreet.com will handle order fulfillment and service provisioning of pdQ smartphones purchased via the Web.

Actioneer announced that CVS.com, PalmGear H.Q.com, and RetailCanada.com have signed as Preferred Providers, under a partnership program for the Actioneer Smart Portal service. The Actioneer Smart Portal provides enhanced access to the Calendar and To Do functions of electronic organizers, including Lotus Notes 4.5, 4.6 and R5, Microsoft Outlook and Palm Desktop.

Here’s an article from CNN that says Red Hat Software might get into the handheld market. They report that Red Hat will develop and offer Cygnus’ Embedded Cygnus Operating System (eCos), which is an embedded Linux-like operating system suitable for devices such as handheld computers and cellular phones.

Due to the Thanksgiving holiday in the US, news will not be posted on Thursday and Friday. News will resume on Monday November 29.

The San Jose Mercury News has this wrap-up of Comdex ’99 in Las Vegas. Information appliances took over the show as Palm computing announced a major deal with Sony and Bill Gates touted Microsoft’s Web Companions, dedicated Internet devices that run on the scaled-down Windows CE operating system and MSN Internet service.

TechWeb is reporting that there’s a new strain of the Melissa virus, called Melissa.w, has hit three major banks in the United Kingdom and is spreading to businesses. TechWeb says that Melissa.w, is contagious because it replicates by emailing copies of itself to the first 50 addresses listed in the Outlook address book on any machine it infects. The virus then attempts to format the hard drives of infected computers on Dec. 25.

CNN has this article on why Everex dropped Windows CE devices. According to the article, Everex pulled out of the Windows CE market to focus on desktop PCs.

Wise Solutions announced the November availability of Version 8.0 of its installation products: InstallMaster, InstallBuilder, and InstallMaker. Version 8.0 of the InstallMaster installation software includes Windows CE Support.

Prudential Retirement Services announced today that it is offering wireless access to 401(k), 403(b) and 457 retirement plan information for users of the Palm VII organizer. The solution will enable Prudential Retirement Services clients and Palm VII users to check account balances, fund prices and individual fund balances.