Monday, December 8 2003
PalmGear, Inc,(
http://www.palmgear.com ), the world's largest and longest running Palm OS(R)-based consumer marketspace, announced today their expansion into China with headquarters in Shanghai and offices in Beijing. Located at
http://www.palmgear.cn , PalmGear's expansion will bring software, eBooks and content to consumers and enterprise customers throughout China. The online store was fully developed in Beijing by PalmGear China and is the first online distribution site for Palm Powered hardware, software and content to be fully localized in mainland China.
PalmGear's presence in China gives handheld device owners access to new software titles from games to office applications. PalmGear China's site includes a full product description translation of the Top 100 software applications into Simplified Chinese with hundreds of additional titles to be added throughout Q1 2004. In addition to fully translated product descriptions in Simplified Chinese, PalmGear China is working with its development team to launch a program which would assist Palm OS developers worldwide with full translation of their software applications for expansion into the China market. The company also plans to give mobile device users access to wireless content delivery through its partnership with PalmSource's Palm Powered Mobile World program.
"China is the world's second largest market for handheld and smartphone sales and an integral part of our global content strategy," said Ryan Wuerch, chief executive officer and president of PalmGear. "By opening offices in mainland China and fully localizing our content offering, we are committing to the continued expansion of the Palm OS platform and third-party software sale growth inside China. We are very excited to provide the China handheld market with a rich content and shopping experience through online sales and enterprise distribution."
"We believe the availability of third-party applications and content is a key driver in the Palm OS economy and we are excited to see our strategic partner, PalmGear, launch their Chinese operations and online store," said David Limp, senior vice president, corporate and business development, PalmSource, Inc.
PalmGear has been the world's largest online distributor for Palm OS software and content since its launch in 1997 and recently announced a strategic partnership with PalmSource that included the company's acquisition of Palm Digital Media, the largest online distributor of eBooks worldwide.
With the purchase of Palm Digital Media, PalmGear increased its content offering to more than 31,000 available digital titles for Palm Powered devices and is pursuing efforts to expand the popular eBook platform into the China
market in 2004.
The opening of PalmGear China comes as the company attends and sponsors the PalmSource China Developer Seminar in Beijing and plans to announce new developer programs for the Chinese market. PalmGear China will create opportunities for Chinese Palm OS developers to distribute their applications
in China and throughout the world.
Source:
http://www.prnewswire.com
