The award-winning Omnisky service, which

The award-winning Omnisky service, which delivers information and e-mail to palmtop computers, is putting itself into Chapter 11 and selling out to Earthlink, which will take over the 32,000 subscriber base. Details are in a press release on Omnisky's Web site. I tried Omnisky early this year when it was setting up a UK operation, and it showed promise. The main problems were the use of GSM instead of GPRS, which Omnisky said wasn't ready for serious use, and the Handspring Visorphone supplied. This had the usual low-resolution Palm-style colour screen, which meant Web sites that used italics were virtually unreadable. This was a major let-down for someone used to a PocketPC and ClearType. At the time, Omnisky felt it was important to get on to the market as soon as possible. It might have done better to get the service right first.