eCal Corporation announced the availability of Intellisync for eCal. Based on the Intellisync Software Development Kit (SDK) from Puma Technology, Intellisync for eCal supports three-way synchronization, enabling PIMs, PDAs, and eCal-powered Web-based calendars to be synchronized during a single session. The current version of Intellisync for eCal supports Microsoft Outlook 97/98/2000 and the Palm Computing platform product family. Support for Lotus Organizer, Windows CE, and other PIM/PDA products will be added in upcoming releases.

Intermec Technologies announced it is shipping a handheld Data Collection PC based on the Windows CE operating system. The 5020 is the first member of a growing Intermec Data Collection PC family. Designed for Enterprise Data Collection tasks from manufacturing to distribution, the family includes stationary, vehicle-mount and pen-based computers.

NEC Electronics announced details of a new organizational structure that builds on previous initiatives designed to realize a leadership position in the system-on-a-chip (SOC) marketplace. The System LSI Division has expanded its market segment focus to include the automotive and Windows CE markets, as well as the previously announced communications, consumer, PC and PC peripherals markets.

Concept Kitchen and Lonely Planet Publications announced a strategic content development partnership. The companies plan to develop a series of travel-related software titles for handheld platforms such as the Palm family of connected organizers and Windows CE-based devices. The first title will launch later this year.

Look out, big boys! Tech Web reports that 3Com, Microsoft, and Symbian could face stiff competition now that Integrated Systems and Mitsubishi Electric plan to develop their own operating system for handheld devices.

Dream or nightmare? ZDNN reports that now that Sega’s Dreamcast finally launched, some folks are having problems with bad game disks.

It’s 9/9/99 as I write this (you’ll read it on the 10th, when we update the news pages again) and so far, everything seems to be holding up fine. As I’m sure many of you know, one of the “key” Y2K dates is 9/9/99 because programmers have for years used this as a test date. Also, I’m told, there’s some ancient EBCDIC (i.e., Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code, a precursor to ASCII characters) coding that maxes at 9999. — DG

The International Herald Tribune reports that Integrated Systems will develop a new operating system for handheld computers with Mitsubishi Electric Corporation.

Fidelity Investments announced an agreement with 3Com to deliver Fidelity’s InstantBroker service nationwide to investors via the Palm VII organizer. Under the terms of the agreement, Fidelity was named 3Com’s premier brokerage provider and will exclusively provide stock trading and personalized information services from a pre-installed application on every Palm VII organizer.

eCal Corporation announced the availability of Intellisync for eCal. Based on the Intellisync Software Development Kit (SDK) from Puma Technology, Intellisync for eCal supports three-way synchronization, enabling PIMs, PDAs, and eCal-powered Web-based calendars to be synchronized during a single session. The current version of Intellisync for eCal supports Microsoft Outlook 97/98/2000 and the Palm Computing platform product family. Support for Lotus Organizer, Windows CE, and other PIM/PDA products will be added in upcoming releases.