Hitachi America Ltd is looking to grab a slice of the corporate handheld market with the launch of a Windows CE-based ‘tablet’- style PC, the ePlate. Shaw Funami, director of the multimedia group at Hitachi’s US subsidiary, said that the ePlate represented the new focus of Hitachi in the handheld market. He said that the company was moving away from consumer devices and aiming to develop devices to serve the corporate market.
The ePlate’s tablet design uses a touch sensitive onscreen keyboard and optical character recognition for data entry purposes. It is based around a 128MHz Hitachi SH-4 RISC processor with up to 32Mb of RAM. The company claims that, at less than two pounds, it is the lightest PC in its class, and has a battery life of nine hours. The machine boasts a color LCD display and a built-in 56K modem. Funami said that the ePlate would be targeted at specific vertical markets such as healthcare and sales force automation.
The corporate focus, said Funami, made Windows CE the obvious choice for the ePlate operating system, allowing users to synchronize their tablets with in-house Microsoft systems. Funami said that Hitachi won’t be following Sharp Corp and others and developing an alternative EPOC or Palm system. Wireless internet is also some time away, according to Funami. However, Hitachi is keen to develop the wireless LAN capabilities of the ePlate and is partnering with Lucent Technologies Inc and Proxim Inc to further this aim. The ePlate will be available late this month, priced at $1,199.
