Star Palm Acquires Be's IP, Be is Closing Down
Linked by Eugenia Loli-Queru on Thu 16th Aug 2001 17:54 UTC, submitted by Irfon-Kim Ahmad
BeOS & Derivatives This Press Release today is everywhere on the net. Palm is acquiring Be's technology, hardware and their software engineering force for $11 million USD. Please notice that they are buying Be's IP, not the company itself.
Our take: Well, at least something happened. I think it is safe to assume that Be will be now closed down (the closing down of the company is pretty much certain, according to the press release "Be's board of directors has approved the transaction, and the winding-up of Be's operating business following the closing") as they now own nothing (except if they want to enter another markets or.. become car or pencil dealers). Being myself a BeOS advocate, user and developer for several years now, I am sad to see this twist and what it probably means for the BeOS. While Palm has not stated what they want to do with Be's technology, my guess is that they do not care about the BeOS and the Desktop OS world. Slashdot has it right this time: I believe Palm mostly bought the engineering force, to create something new and continue make their living in the PDA market. Palm is entering the Desktop through BeOS you say? Yeah, right. I will believe it when I see it. In my mind, the only way to see a BeOS R6 is if there will be a third party licensee that is interesting to license BeOS and do something productive with it (assuming that Palm will be willing to allow that). Palm does not have what it takes to drive a desktop OS neither BeOS can be open sourced (too much licensed source code all over the place).
Update: Not a crucial update to the story, just trying to add a bit of spicy humour. We just had an anonymous sending us in this picture, while BeDoper has its regular, humouristic take on the latest happenings in the Be world.
Update2: ZDNews writes: "However, Palm said it has no plans to further develop the Be operating system as a standalone OS."
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All speculations taken for now we are left in the dark, there is no real statement that say BeOS will not continou or being developed up to a new level,which level that may be. They need a DevOS at PALM and one that's compatible with their new aquisition. BeOS as a desktop OS is, and it's already there. So there is a 50-50% chance that BeOS will survive, be updated as it can die a slow death. At least BeOS will be supported by my company untill such is definately the case. SO we all await the things to happen in the upcoming months. Off course i expect a some excuse from JLG IF/When BeOS is officially death towards the very loyal user and developerbase curently still using BeOS as their Primairy OS. As for me as a user i will continou to use BeOS but at the same time looking in other directions also. If Gobe decides to do it i will support them as well as PALM will. BeOS does it all for me now while other OSes don't have that same appeal as Be has. At the same time i am also a happy PALM user so if all goes as i like to se it go it will go hand in hand and still will be used for many years to come. May the force be with you all, Zathros.