Taiwan economic news sources report that Dell Computer of the U.S. is to soon release orders for 1.2 million PDAs to Taiwan PC makers such as Wistron Corp., Mitac International Corp., Compal Electronic Inc. and High Tech Computer Corp.

Palm still ranksas the world's largest PDA maker but Dell expects to join the arena soon. In order to ensure the competitiveness in the market, Dell expects to source lower production cost but quality PDAs from Taiwan makers on an OEM basis, industry sources said.

Dell has dispatched executives to Taiwan for negotiation of the PDA deal. It is expected ssuch sales will total 1.2 million units in 2002. However will adopt an online bidding for its PDA supply. Any interested parties have to apply via the Internet.

Industry sources said that Taiwan makers have to cut their prices in order to obtain the PDA orders from Dell. They predicted that the gross profit rate would be lower than expected due to fierce competition.

Wistron, Mitac, Compal and High Tech are four Taiwan manufacturers that are expected to strive for PDA orders from Dell. Both Wistron and Compalare the two firms that are likely to obtain the order.

Wistron has now mainly delivered its Pocket PCs to both Toshiba and two other international makers in Japan recently- Such sales are expected to hit between 300,00 and 500,000 units for the first time this year.