Two more firms yesterday pledged their support for 3Com's handheld subsidiary, Palm Computing, by taking minority stakes in the company.

America Online (AOL) and Nokia both agreed to take stakes in Palm, which filed for an initial public offering (IPO) late Monday.

The agreements follow a similar announcement from Motorola yesterday, which also included Motorola signing an agreement to license the Palm operating system.

As news of the deals broke, speculation over whether support for Psion handheld venture Symbian is wavering was spreading. So far, three members of the Symbian joint venture have signed deals with rival firms.

Less than a week ago, Symbian member, Ericsson, signed a deal with Microsoft to launch a new company to market and deliver mobile email solutions for network operators. Microsoft's handheld operating system, Windows CE, is another rival in the market.

Despite signing the deal with Symbian arch rival Microsoft, Ericsson said the venture would not affect its partnership with other Symbian members and that the Microsoft deal did not include joint development or licensing of operating systems.

Diana Hwang, programme manager of IDC's mobile research division, commented: "I don't think this means that support for Symbian is falling by the wayside, but I think we'll see it play out in different form factors."