In 1998, vendors shipped some 1.4 million smart handheld devices in Western Europe, a number which did not live up to market expectations, McKenzie said.

CNN: Handheld use to soar in Europe

The smart phone market is expected to take off much faster in Europe than in the U.S., according to Alison McKenzie, research manager in charge of IDC's smart handheld devices group in London.

CNN: Handheld use to soar in Europe

But although the new architectures may lower the cost of smart handheld devices, new types of Web content will likely be necessary before users will want to surf the Web while walking down the street, Turley commented.

CNN: New chip design targets cell phones

's smart handheld devices group.

CNN: 3Com eyes WAP for use in Palm devices

Hitachi's SH3-DSP integrated RISC architecture is optimized to allow smart phones and other handheld devices to access information from the Internet.

CNN: New chip design targets cell phones

And just a few years hence, wireless interactive access devices, such as smart mobile telephones and handheld computers, are expected to offer easy Internet access on the move.

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As the largest maker of flash memory products, SanDisk stands to benefit greatly from the proliferation of smart phones, MP3 music players, tablet computers and other handheld devices that use such memory.

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It has built handheld devices for archrivals Dell and Hewlett-Packard, smart phones that run the Palm and Windows Mobile operating systems.

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