Wireless brings the Web to the palm

Government personnel with a Palm Inc. handheld device and a mobile phone can now use those two pieces of technology to wirelessly connect to the World Wide Web.

Palm announced at the Comdex Fall 2000 trade show that it is shipping its Mobile Internet Kit, a software product that allows most Palm handhelds to connect wirelessly to the Internet using a data-enabled mobile phone, said Dan Glessner, director of business and government marketing for Palm.

"The Mobile Internet Kit turns a Palm III or Palm V into a Palm VII with the help of a cell phone," Glessner said. "As an individual needs to access a corporate intranet or a dot-gov site to pull

information — or election results — they can now get to that information very quickly."

The Mobile Internet Kit has a retail price of $39.95 and should be available on the General Services Administration schedule shortly, Glessner said.