Show Notes

Handmark is already a popular name on Windows Mobile, Blackberry and Palm, and they are now making their move into the Symbian market with their flagship product, Pocket Express. Steve McGuigan, Handmark’s VP of Product Marketing, talked me through the application.

Essentially it’s a content aggregator, but it is a step removed from the delights of RSS, namely because of staying away from the complexity that RSS can present to an end user. Pocket Express (currently available as a Java version, bespoke C++ builds for S60 will follow shortly) brings in content from a number of sources, including news, current affairs, sports and the financial markets, to create a portal of information.

It also acts as a portal to a Handmark-powered software store, which includes third party apps, so the user never needs to leave the Pocket Express environment to get new software – and that of course puts Handmark in a strong position to benefit if they can get a significant percentage of devices using the system.

Ewan Spence