Hurst, Texas' Handango, which announced a similar deal with Handspring's top rival Palm Inc.., joined with Handspring to power two online Software Stores, one for businesses and one for individuals.

Handango said enterprise customers and consumers can find thousands of Palm OS applications -- ranging from vertical market software to productivity enhancements to games. The software store for consumers may be found here, under the tag "Third-party Software," while the store for enterprise users is located here under the tag "Software."

Beyond the concrete sites, the firms will also engage in a variety of joint marketing and activities to promote the thousands of software applications available. To wit, Mountain View, Calif.'s Handspring will highlight applications and the new software store in the its e-mail newsletter, as well as also push its developer community to take advantage of Handango's commerce services.

Frank Loeffler, director of Internet product and content development for Handspring, noted Handango's extensive channel program, which numbers some 6,000 partners, as a reason for the deal.

Handango and Handspring plan to launch German, French, Spanish and several other sites for Handspring's international customers by the end of 2002.