palmOne announces Mobile Managers

palmOne today said it has created a new line of mobile computing products, the mobile manager, which will be announced later this month. The company describes mobile managers as devices designed for customers who are eager to take full advantage of the trend toward 'digital everything' - from documents and e-mail to music, images and video, as standalone files or in organized folders.

Most likely this device will be the LifeDrive Mobile Manager which was accidentally leaked on Amazon last Friday. The palmOne LifeDrive is expected to feature a 4GB HDD and wirelss connectivity. It will cost $499.

"In studying customer trends, we found that some people want to carry dozens of documents and hundreds of songs while others want to carry a thousand-plus photos and enjoy videos," said Page Murray, palmOne vice president of marketing.

Organization functions were highly valued by nearly all our customers, but some wanted much more business and personal file-management capabilities. We listened and will deliver a new category of mobile-computing product that will let customers fuse their own mix of personal and business content in ways never before possible in either handheld computers or smartphones."