Though some industry observers are predicting the demise of PDAs, handheld maker PalmOne expects to see shipments increase, and is also attempting to expand its share of the European smartphone market.

PalmOne is already the leading smartphone supplier in the US, with its Treo 600 model accounting for an impressive 55 percent of devices sold there in the third quarter of this year, according to figures from research firm Canalys.

However, competition is fiercer in Europe, where Nokia's Symbian-based phones dominate the market.

"We've not been banging our chest enough about how great our products are," said PalmOne's European sales director, Philip Rambech. He predicted that the firm would for the first time see a 50/50 split in profits between its handheld and smartphone lines in the current financial year, but challenged the notion that handhelds are disappearing.

"The old, non-connected style of PDA might go away, but we're making all of our handhelds connected from now on," he said, citing the example of the Tungsten T5, which was introduced last month. "Our own studies show that users will connect it to email or the web via a Bluetooth-enabled phone," he added.

As for the firm's Treo line of smartphones, Rambech said that he believed they fitted a niche in the enterprise market between data-centric mobile devices such as the RIM BlackBerry and voice-centric smartphones such as Sony Ericsson's Symbian-based P910.

"Something is happening in the mobile messaging market. RIM has woken up many companies to the potential of wireless clients, but email is just the starting point, and there is room for other solutions beside BlackBerry," he said.

PalmOne believes its open platform and its partnership with mobile software firms such as Good Technology, Extended Systems and Visto, will ultimately prove more beneficial to businesses than proprietary solutions such as the BlackBerry.

Phone maker Nokia announced a similar strategy this month, when it revealed it was working with Good Technology, Visto and others in an attempt to become the supplier of choice for mobile messaging devices in the enterprise market.

Recent reports have also suggested that PalmOne may be considering devices running software other than Palm OS. They said PalmOne has been evaluating one of Microsoft's mobile operating systems as well as versions of Linux.

Such rumours have been fuelled by the fact that PalmOne's latest devices, such as the Treo 650 and Tungsten T5, run Palm OS 5.4 instead of a newer version of the code. PalmOne was also conspicuous by its absence when PalmSource, developer of the Palm operating system and a former PalmOne subsidiary, launched Palm OS 6.1 Cobalt in September.

Franck Gaget, PalmOne's European marketing director, said that the company will eventually launch devices using the new Palm OS code, but hinted that such a move could be a long way off. "A lot of the telephony stuff that PalmSource has done [in Palm OS 6.1] is the same as we have already done to adapt Palm OS 5 for the Treo," Gaget added.

Gaget also said that PalmOne hoped to increase its presence in the European market next year by creating a whole family of smartphones. "Our challenge is to grow faster than the market next year," he said. The company's Treo 650 smartphone is due to ship in Europe in February.