Microsoft is reportedly creating its own alternative to the MP3 digital music playback and recording standard. ZDNet says that Microsoft could announce its MS Audio 4.0 technology as soon as April 13 at Audisee99.

Motorola Inc. and Starfish Software Inc. introduced the Motorola StarTAC Mobile Organizer, a smart connected accessory designed to clip onto the back of Motorola StarTAC. Using TrueSync technology from Starfish, this clip-on device synchronizes with popular Web-Calendars, desktop organizers and PDAs including Yahoo! Calendar & Address Book, Microsoft Outlook, Lotus Organizer, and Lotus Notes. The Organizer also allows users to export phone numbers directly from the device to the StarTAC

Here’s an article from News.com on how Apple plans to tackle the handheld market. At this year’s shareholder meeting, interim CEO Steve Jobs said that Apple will not develop one of its own, but could sell a handheld device under the Apple brand.

MacCentral has this item on Qualcomm’s pdQ Smartphone. The pdQ Smartphone will run on Palm Computing’s operating system, which will allow users to run all Palm applications, check email, and surf the Web. It will be on display at this year’s PCExpo, June 22-24 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City.

There is now hope for Mac users who really wanted to use AvantGo’s application to download Web pages to your Palm device. AvantGo has released the client code for the Mac as open source in hopes that developers in the open-source community will port the Windows code to the Mac.

The Gartner Group sponsored the Spring Symposium/ITxpo 99 this week in San Diego. At the event, Jeff Hawkins, inventor of the Palm organizer and Jonathan Roberts, Microsoft’s group director for market development agreed that while handheld devices are here to stay, they will not take over the PC.

Info Lighthouse Corporation (ILC) has released a service called “Sports On The Go” that provides user-specified sports content for both Palm computers and Windows CE devices.The “Sports On The Go” web content can be viewed with AvantGo’s AvantGo version 1.1, 2.X and 3.X (when available), Microsoft’s Mobile Channel Viewer, as well as a typical web browser.

The editors at ZDNet take a look at the Palm V and Palm IIx. In the article, they try to figure out which device is better. And the debate rages on.

DataQuest says that the market for embedded and mobile database solutions has grown in the past year. According to the report, the market has grown by 19 percent.

BuilderCalc Series P is now available for the Palm Computing connected organizer. BuilderCalc Series P is a dimensional calculator for architects, engineers and construction professionals.