Declaring that "this will be full Web browsing as we understand it," the CEO of Psion, a British maker of palmtop computers, said his company is entering a partnership with Motorola to develop wireless Internet products.
"The intention is to put the Internet in the user's pocket," said Psion's chief exec, David Levin.
Full remote access is currently elusive. The best one can hope for at the moment is a low-tech version of the Internet delivered by wireless handsets.
Levin said the Psion-Motorola partnership should change this reality soon, perhaps within a year. The first products from this collaboration should begin appearing in 2001, he said.
A joint team is working on pocket Internet terminals, which will be based on next-generation Symbian technology. Psion said the project was progressing well.
No financial terms for the partnership were disclosed.
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Two stakes, well done: Two of the Web's portlier players put on a little more weight Monday, with AOL taking a modest stake in Netcentives Inc. and Amazon.com buying 5 percent of Audible Inc.
America Online's interest in Netcentives, which develops frequent-buyer programs online, was seen as largely a marketing deal, with some technology thrown in on the side. AOL's total investment is believed to be less than 5 percent.
Amazon's Audible deal, meanwhile, is valued at $18.3 million. As a result, Amazon's 16 million customers will be able to purchase digital audio content from Audible, including newspapers, magazines, audiobooks, speeches, language lessons, and radio programs.
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Selling off: Toshiba, the struggling Japanese electronics firm, intends to pursue a strategy of "reasonable alliances" with other companies and will float part of some businesses on the stock market.
Taizo Nishimuro, Toshiba's president and CEO, said he expects the company to return to profitability by next year.
"We would like to keep Toshiba as a single company but on the other hand there are areas of our businesses where we should not own 100 percent by ourselves," Nishimuro said Monday.
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Flying high: United Parcel Service, buoyed by its surging international and Internet business, posted a 37.1 percent jump in fourth-quarter profits, the company said Monday.
UPS reported a profit of $661 million, or 56 cents per share. That beat analysts' estimates by a penny. Revenues rose 11.7 percent to $7.45 billion.
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Divide and multiply: Thermo Electron Corp., which manufactures environmental, medical, and industrial equipment, said it has decided to split the company into three publicly traded businesses and spin off two of them to its shareholders.
Thermo Electron, based in Waltham, Massachusetts, said it will focus on its measurement and detection-instruments business.
Reuters contributed to this report.
