SINGAPORE, Dec 31 ; US technology giant Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) launched yesterday the first Asian-designed-and-built hand-held personal computer using Microsoft Corp's latest software operating system, reports AFP.

The HP Jornada 820 handheld PC, based on the new Microsoft Windows (CE) operating system, was developed and manufactured in Singapore and Intended to complement HP’s series of palmtop personal computers, officials said.

It is the first of a new generation of hand-held PCs developed by the company.

'This is really one of the landmark, breakthrough products of mobile computing," declared Khaw Kheng Joo, General Manager of HP's Asia-Pacific Personal Computer Division, at a media briefing here.

"We expect its introduction to reinforce our lead position in the hand-held PC market," Khaw said.

Analysts said that demand for hand-held PCs in Asia was not as strong as in Europe and the United States.

"The adoption rate in Asia is still slow. The current economic crisis will have to pass before there is a full scale (adoption).'' said Daniel Sim. senior analyst with international computer research firm Dataquest.

Information technology budgets in Asia have been shaved because of the region’s financial crisis since mid-1997.

Sim said the global handheld personal computer market grew by a strong 65 per cent last year with 2.4 million unit shipments. He said 1998 projection figures had not been worked out yet.

Among the key advantages of the new device are its unprecedented 10 to 15 hours of continuous battery life and special dial-up software to make it ways for users to access E-mail and the Internet.

Smaller than a letter-sized sheet, the 2.5-pound (1.1-kilo-gram) machine has no disk drives but stores and retrieves files and data rapidly using a special kind of memory. The "mini-notebook" comes with a built-in 56-kilobyte per second modem and costs 1.899 Singapore dollars (1.186 US).

The new hand-held PC is targetted at corporate executive frequently away from their desks and need access to E-mail and the Internet, officials said.

Khaw said that the product would leave the factory in Singapore within a week and would be on US retail shelves by the first week of November.

HP holds a lead in the windows CE market share, having had 43 per cent of the worldwide market in the palmtop PC category last year. Dataquest said.

Khaw said HP planned to localise the new product in China by 1999 in an attempt to further improve its market share in Asia.