Windows Magazine reviews the Palm VII. The article says that while the Palm VII is easy to use, it is a bit too expensive.

BrainDock.com announced the availability of new titles for the Palm OS from publisher Palmtop Software Ltd. These new programs are now available for member resellers on the BrainDock.com network. The Palm OS offerings, Route US and Route Europe, are road map and route planning applications for business and leisure travelers.

Thanks to one of your readers for pointing us to AOL’s release of an early beta of AOL Instant Messenger for handheld PCs running the Windows CE operating system.

Enjoy the Music.com has expanded to include an AutoPC information and review magazine on the Internet. Enjoy the Music.com will feature reviews of products and software.

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. will introduce a single-chip solution that can be programmed to decode all standard-definition 480i and 480p formats used around the world for digital-TV broadcasts. According to the Electronic Engineering Times, the new chip uses PieOS, Matsushita’s proprietary real-time OS.

BSQUARE Corporation announced the availability of two new software development kits that enable fast development of devices based on Windows CE and the new Hitachi SuperH CardEngine. When used with the SuperH CardEngine, BSQUARE’s CE Xpress Adaptation Kit and CE Xpress Binary Kit create development environments that help developers bring up Windows CE, achieve device development, and shorten time-to-revenue.

Here’s an article from VAR Business on how handheld devices are moving into the corporate mainstream.

Certicom and Actual Software announced that the two companies will develop and market technology that enables the secure synchronization of e-mail from corporate e-mail servers to handheld computers. Palm Computing or Windows CE-based handheld devices can now be used as secure enterprise e-mail clients. Actual Software’s MultiMail PRO messaging software combined with Certicom’s SSL security technology enables users to securely transfer messages from any IMAP4 enterprise e-mail server over a CDPD wireless network connection or a traditional phone line.

WaveWare Communications announced that it is shipping WaveSync. WaveSync enables applications that currently synchronize over the Palm Computing platform’s HotSync architecture to synchronize with an enterprise server. With WaveSync, multiple users can now synchronize multiple applications simultaneously with a central server from the desktop or remotely direct to the server.

After considerable work, we’ve got a version of PalmPower that downloads to to your handheld device (using AvantGo 3.0 only). We’re still in testing, but if you’d like to try it out, you’re welcome to. We’ve set up a PowerBoard discussion to serve as our central location for news and updates of the AvantGo version until we “officially” launch it. Visit the discussion link for details on setting up your handheld version. Please note this is *beta* software, so we can’t do any real handholding if things don’t work for you. Use the discussion boards to comment. If we get enough positive comments, we’ll make a handheld version available full-time.