1999 will belong to hand-held devices, say experts. The market is expected to mature and witness tremendous growth. Products will be plenty; in all sizes and shapes as majors like Microsoft and Cyrix are preparing for the stiff competition ahead.

Cyrix Corporation, a subsidiary of the US-based National Semiconductor Corporation (NSC), has taken a step forward by launching its first offering, Webpad in the Indian market. The company has lined up a few more products for India, sub $1,000 notebooks/laptops based on Cyrix CPUs, set-top boxes based on Media GX processors, which can be directly connected to a television to surf the net and PC on a chip for web browsing by June 1999.

"The set top boxes will be available for less than $200 to end users so no one needs to invest Rs 30000 or more for a PC." said SanjeevKeskar, country manager (India), National Semiconductors.

The Webpad is the industry's first reference design for a low cost, portable, wireless consumer device for Internet access. Says Keskar, "It allows users to surf the web or send an e-mail from anywhere around the home or office."

Also it can be used for e-commerce, like on-line purchasing, games like on-line entertainment and financial activities including stock quotes and on-line banking.

The International Data Corporation says that the companies are aware that it would be difficult to make an impact in smart handheld devices market as more devices will alter the landscape, resulting in heightened competition.

It also estimates the market to grow at robust pace with device unit shipments reaching 10.7 million units.

IDC pegs this growth at an increase of 45 per cent over the estimated 1998 worldwide shipments of 7.4 million units.

Cyrix will provide the Webpad reference design to consumer electronic OEMs. The Webpad employs sophisticatedwireless data transmission technology to make a truly mobile device, providing convenience similar to that of a cordless phone.

An 8x11 inch 2.7 pound tablet, which is approximately the same as a magazine, the Webpad features an LCD touchscreen, supporting high resolution graphics. The Webpad running on a Cyrix MediaGX processor will have embedded operating systems including Windows CE and embedded NT options. Having dual USB ports, this device has inbuilt speakers and microphone.

Keskar is quite bullish about the handheld market. "The market will boom since personal digital assistants like Palm Pilot that act as additional accessories for one's daily planning or computing activities can become really handy. Other products will be similar to Webpad, which was pioneered by Cyrix," he said.

Any market that has shown acceptance to products like mobile phones or even walkman will be a fertile ground for these devices. Infact, IDC estimates that these devices will gain corporate interest in 1999 and beyond.Potential consumers are existing PC users. Webpad is not designed replace the PCs as a productivity tool but a complementary one. With the number of web users expected to rise to 129.2 million by 2000 from the 71.3 million now, the new users will prefer hand-held devices.

In the home market, which is growing at a phenomenal pace, more than 73 per cent of the users use PCs for entertainment.

Microsoft with Windows CE OS is crucial player in the market while Philips has its own palmtops in the market. Tektronix came out with a handheld network analyser for ISDN services called TelScout 200.