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The beleaguered company is hoping its new regional vice-president can repeat his market-winning performance at HP

PalmOne's new Asia-Pacific vice-president, Paul Blinkhorn, has surprisingly little to say about  the sliding sales of personal digital assistants, the company's mainstay, at a time when PalmOne is rapidly losing market share.

Pressed on the issue, he gave the stock answer offered by PalmOne executives - the company was going to find new PDA growth in China.

High on his priority list is the launch of PalmOne's Treo 600 smartphone in the mainland.

Mr Blinkhorn hopes sales in China will offset the lack of growth in the rest of the region, but he is unable to explain how PalmOne intends to approach a market dominated by local players.

The new vice-president, who joined PalmOne nearly two months ago,  said he was still trying to find his feet.

He could not give a launch date for the Treo 600 in China, but he said  massive preparatory work was under way to get to grips with  domestic regulations,  distribution channels, carrier relationships,  certification processes and infrastructure tests.

'It is our desire to know the best way to launch Treo in China. We want to make sure we can do it properly,' he said.

The Treo 600, launched in the United States in the third quarter last year, is not yet officially available in Hong Kong. In the region, it is available only in Singapore, Australia and New Zealand.

To succeed in China, PalmOne needs to target tech-savvy professionals in urban areas, according to International Data Corp  senior manager of personal systems research Bryan Ma.

'Such targeted promotion in China could potentially help PalmOne counter any potential handheld shipment slide in Asia Pacific,' he said.

The Treo 600's success in China also hinges on timely supply. PalmOne has admitted that the complexity of its merger with Handspring created  product shortages.

Mr Blinkhorn said the company was ramping up production.

His new job comes with high expectations. An information technology veteran with 25 years of management experience, he was head of Hewlett-Packard's Asia-Pacific mobile devices business last year when  the company's iPaq series of Pocket PC-based handhelds  rocketed into the top market position in the region.

HP overtook PalmOne and mainland vendors Hi-Tech Wealth, GSL and Minren to claim the No1 position in the Asia-Pacific handheld sector last year, doubling its  handheld shipments to 330,500 units  from the previous year, according to IDC. Worldwide, its shipments rose 40.3 per cent to 2.28 million units.

In stark contrast, PalmOne saw handheld shipments in the Asia-Pacific region slip to 232,100 units last year from 238,800 units in 2002. Worldwide, it saw a 19 per cent decline in shipments compared with an industry wide fall of 5.3 per cent, according to research firm Gartner.

Sales of PDAs have declined over the past two years as  consumer interest  has shifted to  smartphones - mobile phones with PDA-like features.

Seeing the writing on the wall, PalmOne  bought smartphone maker Handspring early last year  to jump-start its converged device business. But the competition was there earlier. Nokia led in converged device shipments to the Asia-Pacific region last year, followed by Motorola and Sony Ericsson, according IDC.

PalmOne is hoping that its new Asia-Pacific vice-president will repeat his success in  spearheading the iPaq's ascent and reverse the downward trend for PalmOne.

Mr Blinkhorn said PalmOne's market segmentation strategy around three brands - the Tungsten, Zire and Treo - provided considerable opportunities. The Tungsten is targeted at mobile professionals, the Zire at PDA novices and the Treo smartphone at those who want to carry only one device.

'No other organisation has the same product breadth as us,' said Mr Blinkhorn, an arguable claim as  HP  also sells a Pocket PC with cellular phone features, called the Jornada W928.

'The unique edge in PalmOne's product design is being diluted by competitors coming out with equally good products,' said Mr Ma. 'HP has introduced a wide range of products,  catapulting the company to a much better position. It has also been extremely aggressive in advertising.'

Mr Blinkhorn appeared unfazed. 'It's never our intent to concentrate on the competition. Worldwide, we are still the No1 vendor,' he said.

He said he saw significant opportunities for the Tungsten brand, adding that PalmOne planned to expand partnerships with application developers in Asia to target corporate users. However, he could not provide details.

Opportunities also abounded in the smartphone sector.

'The market for converged devices is going to be very strong in Asia ... We have a wonderful, fertile ground for Treo to develop,' he said.



PalmOne pins hopes for China on former rival