Palm has effectively committed itself to producing handheld devices based on the Palm OS – which it no longer owns – by agreeing to pay USD 44m for a perpetual licence for the source code underlying the Garnet incarnation of the operating system. The move is tantamount to Palm re-acquiring PalmSource.
Really lost me on this one, thought the logical path forward was through linux for palm, would’ve thought this as being the logical path backward.
First of all, don’t confuse Palm with Palmsource/Access/Linux. Secondly, maybe Palm also develops its own Linux version internally, and they need the PalmOS 5 source code in order to add binary emulation to their Linux flavor.
Doubtfull. This would require a great deal of software development, and Palm doesn’t seem all too interested in software development right now. I think this more or less boils down to Palm wanting to secure the operating system on their most succesful current product, the Treo. They made an attempt at PocketPC with little success, and are just realizing that Garnet is really their bread and butter OS.
This is something that they should have done many 1-2 years ago already. PalmOS 5 needs some beautification — along some more technical changes. Hopefully, they will add A2DP/AVRCP support and God, oh God, smaller/better AA fonts so the web browser fits more text in it. Of course, some memory protection wouldn’t hurt either.
This sucks. Hey — I loved PalmOS too, and my Zire 71 was tons more reliable than my pocket pc has ever been. But wake up! It’s 2006 and I don’t think PalmOS Garnet is going to cut it anymore.
I’m afraid Access Linux Platform will end up like all other current linux “platforms”: very hard to find and buy.
I was planning on going back to a palm when they shipped ALP, but it seems that’s never going to happen.
“””I’m afraid Access Linux Platform will end up like all other current linux “platforms”: very hard to find and buy.”””
Indeed. I keep reading that Linux is a big success in the embedded market. Great. So why can’t I go out and buy a palmtop running Linux anywhere in this city of population 1 million?
It’s the strangest “success” I’ve seen in a long time.
I had to buy my Sharp Zaurus from Amazon. Office Despot (that’s what I call them) did say that they used to carry them. Of course, Sharp’s marketing for all their PDA’s is so pathetic it’s not even funny, so I put that discontinuation off to Sharp’s ineptitude.
Still, for all the hype, I have been very disappointed with the availability (or lack thereof) of these Linux based devices.
“I keep reading that Linux is a big success in the embedded market. Great. So why can’t I go out and buy a palmtop running Linux anywhere in this city of population 1 million?”
Embedded != consumer electronics. Also, it is more the less portable devices (i.e. routers, etc) that use Linux, indeed the more visible places (pda/mobile/etc) it is a lot less common.
And btw, if you want to buy a Linux device in your city, I’m sure you could find a TomTom GO car-GPS navigation device for sale somewhere there!
(Yes, TomTom GO’s run Linux, check http://www.tomtom.com/gpl)
There are simply no readily available, refined GUIs that are designed for a mobile world. Any company that wanted to make a linux based mobile phone or PDA would have to either create their own GUI, or use one of the existing, aestheticaly unpleasing ones.
I myself was rather looking forward to a linux with the simple beauty of PalmOS, but if the success of Cobalt is anything to go by, then I don’t see much of a future.
I thought that was the idea of Qtopia? Admittedly, I’ve never used it, but from the screenshots it looks aesthetically comparable to PocketPC & Palm.
I believe that was the idea behind it, yes. In my opinion, it’s overly complex and not that intuitive. Of course, that’s pretty much my opinion of Pocket PC, too. PalmOS has always remained just behind the competition when it comes to implementing the newest technologies, but it’s had what none of the other PDA OSs have had, simplicity (I haven’t used symbian, although I’ve heard that it’s quite good, too). I just don’t see the point of bogging down precious screen space on a phone or PDA with things like a desktop style system tray, etc.
The newest phone from Motorola uses embedded Linux.
Motorola ROKR E6
It’s not really tantamount to Palm re-acquiring PalmSource since Palm is only getting IP, no physical property, no contract obligations, and no staff.
Palm is doing software development again and has been hiring a lot of people lately, although mostly apps developers. Still, the rumor that they’re working on their own Linux won’t die, no matter how silly it is.
The PDA itself is a dying commodity stuck in a shrinking niche.
PalmOS was simple because it didn’t do very much and it ran on very simple hardware. You’ll never get that kind of simplicity on a telephony device because of the law of requisite complexity.
>It’s not really tantamount to Palm re-acquiring
>PalmSource since Palm is only getting IP, no physical
>property, no contract obligations, and no staff.
Also since they aren’t getting the code for Cobalt. I really don’t understand what was so wrong with Cobalt that even Palm themselves don’t want to use it, but oh well…
Edited 2006-12-09 10:52
Cobalt was late, slow, and difficult to write for.
Whatever became of cobalt?
it died a horrible death.
it was put on a shelf so that PSRC could do PalmOs For Linux, except that GSPDA had announced they’d ship a phone on it. GSPDA shipped the phone (called Jasper) running SavajaOS instead, and PSRC dropped PalmOS For Linux when they were bought by Access, in favor of doing a wart on the side of Access Linux Platform (ALP)
Ummm… out of curiosity, who owns the rights to BeOS now?
Umm I am not sure… I would guess the company that makes Zeta (this is an unreliable guess). But why did you bring that up? I can’t for the life of me understand why you brought that up
Umm I am not sure… I would guess the company that makes Zeta (this is an unreliable guess). But why did you bring that up? I can’t for the life of me understand why you brought that up
Because PalmSource owned the rights to BeOS (and presumably Access still owns them) and Magnussoft may or may not have the appropriate rights to distribute modified version of BeOS.
Anyway, I think its pretty clear from this deal that Palm has no interest in ALP. My guess is that Access/Palmsource has no interest in improving Garnet anymore and Palm wants to keep nursing it along until they can migrate their customer base to something else.
thanks for the informative reply. That’s news to me.
Anyhow, I hope that a linux handheld comes along someday. I mean other than what’s already available. I really liked my zire 72. So I guess it’s not a terrible thing if Palm continues to milk garnet.
Now if only I could get my hands on a new PDA that isn’t a phone…
ACCESS. PSRC got the rights when they bought Be and ACCESS got them when they bought PSRC.
Got to love the CEO that came up with sell/spin off product Z for $Y, then buy it back a wee bit later for $(X times Y).
How much was his bonus the last few years?
Not true. PalmSource is competing against Linux, WinCE, and others, so it isn’t in a position to charge multiples.