Toshiba supports Microsoft's OneNote

Microsoft and Toshiba announced Tuesday that the software maker's new OneNote note-taking application will be included on all Toshiba portable PCs.

OneNote is set to go on sale next month as part of Microsoft's newly christened Office System, a collection of products built around the company's widespread Office productivity software. OneNote is intended to give students and workers a more comfortable and easily searched venue for taking notes and collecting research information.

Initial expectations were that the software would mainly work as an adjunct to Microsoft's Tablet PC operating system for pen-based PCs. But Microsoft is hoping the software will find an audience with laptop PC users as well, particularly college students.

Terry Cronin, senior product manager for Toshiba's Satellite notebook line, said he expects OneNote to be a popular addition to the company's mobile PC products. "We think OneNote is one of those types of solutions that really provides mobile customers with a way to organize and access the information they gather from different sources," he said.

OneNote, one of several new applications included in Office System, is being positioned as an adjunct to word-processing program Word. OneNote is designed for taking notes and organizing them with information from other sources, such as Web pages. The program automatically saves notes as they're entered and offers several options for organizing and browsing the notes, which can later be incorporated into final Word documents.