Glasgow-based UI pioneer Picsel has scored a major win, with BenQ opting to put its kit and caboodle on its own P30 smartphone to be launched this year in the Far East.

As we've noted, it isn't easy to describe the Picsel suite. The file viewing portion already graces the Sony Clie, but its strength is as a fast and fluid "desktop" for handheld devices, which seamlessly drops you into viewing remote or local documents. The File Viewer can handle PDF files, webpages of Office documents, as well as graphics. This doesn't sound terribly dramatic, but the experience is quite remarkable. It left this reporter wondering why navigating a desktop computer couldn't be as fast or fluid.

The P30 is a pen-based Symbian UIQ phone. The software runs on PocketPC, Linux, Palm and Symbian phones, and has been ported to manufacturers' own operating systems. The viewer technology is entirely client-side, although Picsel plans to add a messaging suite, which uses a server tier, to its offerings.

A spokesman for the company said that three major deals in China can be expected.®

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