Rebranding is a complicated business, and a plan has been underway at Palm to split its hardware and software divisions for a couple of years. On Monday, the company said the name palmOne was chosen following interviews with a broad spectrum of Palm customers, partners, employees, naming consultants and "industry influencers."

Palm said the new name is characterized in two colors -- deep red for the word 'palm' and vibrant orange for 'One,' reflecting the subbrand colors for the company's Tungsten line of solutions for mobile professionals and business and its Zire line of solutions for consumers and multimedia enthusiasts, respectively.

The lower-case treatment of the company name gives the word "palm" visual emphasis," the company said.

One reason for the company's re-branding efforts may be the slump in sales for handheld devices. At a time when many consumers and businesses aren't gobbling up PDA's, wireless phones have taken on far more technological sophistication and applications. Palm also faces pressure from PC maker Dell Computer (Quote, Company Info), which is also targeting the low-end of the handheld device market.

On Monday, tech research firm IDC issued a report saying as enterprises and consumers continue to heavily scrutinize technology purchases, the evolution of mobile phones will cap market expansion for one of the hottest technology products of the 1990s. According to new research from IDC, potential growth for the unconnected PDA market will shift largely to voice-enabled devices.

"From mobile phones to converged mobile devices, which combine the data capabilities of PDAs with the voice communication capabilities of mobile phones, competing device types will draw buyers away from traditional handheld devices. In 2003, the worldwide handheld device industry will decline by 8.4 percent to 11.35 million units, its second straight year of decline," IDC said.

While limited growth is expected to return in 2004, dreams of a 20 million unit-a-year market will be replaced by a less than 15 million unit-a-year reality -- a reality that is finding companies like Dell, Handspring, Hewlett-Packard , Palm, and Research-In-Motion (Quote, Company Info) looking to converged mobile device production, IDC added.

The report is part of IDC's Worldwide Smart Handheld Devices Forecast and Analysis for 2003-2007.