After four years of making hand-held devices in an increasingly crowded market, Handspring is targeting the much larger mobile phone sector though it will not quit the personal digital assistant (PDA) arena completely.
The company now describes itself as a maker of communication devices, banking its future on its Treo line of smartphones.
Handspring Asia-Pacific and Latin America director Edward Chan-Lizardo said: 'We are now focused on the convergence space. Others call it smartphones, smart PDAs, combo devices but we call it integrated communicators.'
The company launched the Treo 90 and 270 in Hong Kong this week, a month after becoming available in the United States.
The Treo 270 was no surprise. The firm said six months ago when it launched the Treo 180, a monochrome handheld device running the Palm OS with GSM phone features, that a colour version featuring general packet radio services (GPRS) would be available in the middle of this year.
That announcement proved a mistake, hampering sales of the 180 in Hong Kong as people awaited the colour version.