HP Deepens Push Into Cell Phone Market

Hewlett-Packard unveiled two new cell phones Wednesday, pushing deeper into the lucrative mobile phone market and broadening the array of equipment it can sell to large companies.

The two phones announced Wednesday signal a new direction for HP as it builds off its strength in the PDA market and its ubiquity in corporate IT server rooms and employee offices and tries also to become a full-fledged smart phone maker.

The iPAQ 600 Series Business Navigator looks and functions like a cell phone and includes a navigation feature with 3-D maps. It's HP's second cell phone, coming on the heels of the Voice Messenger announced in February.

The company also announced the iPAQ 900 Series Business Messenger, a smart phone with a full keyboard that follows another full-keyboard model introduced last year.

Both run on the latest in third-generation, or 3G, high-speed networks. No carriers have been announced yet, but HP said the phones are planned to work with most major carriers.

The new phones are a key part of HP's efforts to expand its iPAQ brand of handheld products beyond PDA devices, which still sell briskly, though their popularity is fading in favor of more phone-like gadgets.