Treo Becomes Even More Multinational

Posted By: Ed Friday, February 1, 2002 9:20:59 AM

Yesterday, Handspring released the Treo line in Singapore. Both the 180 and 180g are available for SD 970 with a two year service contract. SingTel will be providing the wireless service and selling the devices. This follows on the heels of the Treo's release in Hong Kong earlier this week, selling for HKD 4380. Wireless service for the Treo in Hong Kong is being provided by PacRim Technologies.

Of course, the Treo will soon be available in many more countries. This will be made much easier by an agreement announced this week to localize the product line into 15 European languages

Paragon Software and MDS Holdings, the sole official distributor of Handspring in Central and Eastern Europe, are continuing the localization project they started in 1999. They will be localizing the Treo into Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Estonian, Hungarian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Turkish, and Ukrainian.

This project will be based on PiLoc technology, developed by Paragon Software. This makes Palm OS devices understandable for every potential customer, even for those who don't speak English at all.

Localization software will be bundled free of charge by MDS Holdings with all Treo units sold to end users and resellers.

Beside this agreement, Paragon Software will develop on its own and with its local partners Portuguese, Dutch, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, Greek, and Hebrew localizations of the Treo.

The localization software, PiLoc for Handspring Treo, will be available to end users at $20 per copy

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Thoughtful Planning

I.M. Anonymous @ 2/1/2002 9:34:39 AM #

Wow, looks like Handspring has really thought this Treo revolution out nicely.

RE: Thoughtful Planning

I.M. Anonymous @ 2/1/2002 9:48:10 AM #

I agree. I am really surprised. They have actually thought this one out long and hard. The TREO is defintely spreading a lot faster than the Visor did.

RE: Thoughtful Planning

I.M. Anonymous @ 2/1/2002 9:50:57 AM #

they still **** on us americans.

RE: Thoughtful Planning

I.M. Anonymous @ 2/1/2002 9:53:59 AM #

Look, Handspring has got to sell the Treo where people can use them. That's not the U.S. We made a mistake with our policy of not creating a wireless standard. Now we are paying for it. That's not Handspring's fault. I know we American's aren't much for taking personal responsibility and looking for people to blame for our problems but this is really our fault.

RE: Thoughtful Planning

I.M. Anonymous @ 2/1/2002 9:56:18 AM #

Well, they **** on the americans because the americans have **** on GSM for awhile. :)

Anyways, I'm glad that the OS on each device will be localized, but what about the thumb keyboard?

Many of those countries have very different alphabets. Are they localizing the hardware too? I don't see much use for this phone in countries like Ukraine and Russia, where some of the letters may look the same, but sound completely different.

RE: Thoughtful Planning

I.M. Anonymous @ 2/1/2002 10:09:53 AM #

...not really considering its not trimode... and why the heck isnt it???

RE: Thoughtful Planning

palmcoder @ 2/1/2002 10:32:58 AM #

US didn't **** on GSM' it was (for better or worse) a practical decision. the carriers realized that despite GSM's popularity in the overseas market, it just isn't as good a fit as CDMA.

with a country as large as the US, we need a air standard that integrates well with analog modes. CDMA has that, GSM doesn't.

At the end of the day, I don't really care which one I use - I just want my calls to go thru! ;)

RE: Thoughtful Planning

Foo Fighter @ 2/1/2002 1:47:55 PM #

One of the above posters said: "The TREO is defintely spreading a lot faster than the Visor did."

How can you say that when the Treo isn't even available yet, except in Hong Kong and Singapore. We don't know how well the Treo will do in the USA until it actually hits the market.

RE: Thoughtful Planning

I.M. Anonymous @ 2/1/2002 3:33:20 PM #

Foo to clarify.

When the Visor was available it took a very long time to reach the Asian, European and even the Canadian market. Things seem to be a lot different with the Treo. It will be available in more countries a lot faster than the Visor did and this should bode well for sales.

RE: Thoughtful Planning

I.M. Anonymous @ 2/4/2002 4:41:16 PM #

Either that, or it's simply a shotgun approach, with the hopes that if they fire it off in enough places, it'll stick somewhere.

IMHO Treo will be the death of Handspring, because 1) the PDA/cellphone combo is overrated, and 2) Handspring's essentially ignored their domestic-freakin'-market, the US, by going GSM. For a company that has NEVER, repeat, NEVER, posted a profit, it seems rather foolish to seek overseas dollars before you go after your home market.

No doubt some Handspring-loving loser will flame me mercilessly, but such is life here on PIC, and the flamers can all go to h***.

For a million dollars, where is the int'l service for i705?

I.M. Anonymous @ 2/2/2002 12:03:08 AM #

A. offered by local privatized telephone carrier
B. offered by palm
C. offered by independentoperators
D. None.

My final answer would be ................D

Please tell me I didn't won a million dollars.....

Wireless Service in Hong Kong

I.M. Anonymous @ 2/2/2002 12:50:21 PM #

Just want to let you know that PacRim is probably the distributor of Treo (and Visors) in Hong Kong. She itself doesn't provide any wireless service.

And since Treo uses GSM technology, you can choose between a few GSM 900MHz network service providers, including SmarTone (an official reseller of Treo). Excluding some GSM 1800MHz-only providers.