Maker of Palm Software to Unveil Operating System for Smart Phones
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PalmSource is set to announce its first operat- ing system for smart phones, with applications typically found on desktop computers.
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&quot;Future Palm devices may run Linux, thanks to a surprise purchase by PalmSource. The company, which makes the operating software for the PalmOne devices (notably the Treo smartphones), intends to buy China
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Palm Inc. posted on its blog an audio interview with founder Jeff Hawkins answering questions about the Foleo, its smart phone companion device.
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(InfoWorld) - One of the main attractions of Palm's business was its software expertise, according to private-equity firm Elevation Partners, which plans toÂ acquire about 25 percent of the struggling mobile device maker. Ending speculation that Palm would be gobbled up by mobile phone vendors Motorola or Nokia, Elevation said Monday it would pay $325 million to buy approximately one quarter of Palm's shares. Subject to shareholder approval and other closing conditions, the deal is due to be completed in the third quarter of this year. Elevation has been looking closely at Palm for the last six to seven months, said Roger McNamee, a managing director and cofounder of the private-equity company. He believes limits are being reached in hardware design for mobile devices with a sense that the devices can't be shrunk any further without losing the functionality customers expect. McNamee admitted that Palm had been out of sync with developments occurring in the mobile hardware device market. "They'll close that gap relatively soon, then the game will be all about software," he said. "Software is where this company [Palm] truly excels." The company has struggled in the face of strong competition from Motorola and Nokia with their smartphones and has found it hard to sell its products to corporations hooked on Research In Motion's BlackBerry devices. At the same time, Palm anticipates that more and more people will access the Internet from mobile devices. "We're incredibly well positioned to pursue that opportunity," said Ed Colligan, Palm president and CEO. "We have a broad range of software efforts underway here. Software is the battleground of the future." Palm continues to design systems infrastructure, applications, and services, which it's extending into different form factors, including its newÂ Foleo handheld computer, he added. Once the deal closes, McNamee is set to join Palm's board of directors along with his colleague at Elevation, Fred Anderson, Apple's former CFO. The debut of Apple's iPhone, the company's first ever cell phone, due out June 29, will benefit Palm, McNamee said. "We've every reason to believe that the iPhone will be incredibly successful," he added. "It's a chance to bring software to the fore. Palm has a long tradition of great user interface design." Elevation's investment in Palm is all about providing the vendor with better resources to execute on its current product road map, McNamee said, to both retain its current employees and attract new talent. The investment will also enable Palm to continue making small acquisitions, Colligan added, with the company expecting to have more than $300 million in cash on its balance sheet once the Elevation deal closes. Palm and Elevation are pinning their hopes for positive changes to Palm's development processes on a third new board member, Jon Rubinstein, who will join Palm as its executive chairman. They're looking forward to the combination of Rubinstein and Palm's founder and current technical guru Jeff Hawkins. While Rubinstein helped in the creation of Apple's iPod music player and iMac computer, Hawkins pioneered both the first handheld and smartphone devices. "It's a team that can't be beat," McNamee said. Colligan added that while Hawkins has a good feel for the "next big thing" in technology, Rubinstein is very strong on the execution of product development.
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(InfoWorld) - Access Co., the Japanese company thatÂ purchased PalmSourceÂ last year, has sold a perpetual license for the Palm OS to PDA-maker Palm Inc. for $44 million, the companies said Wednesday. The nonexclusive source code license allows Palm to modify the code base of Palm OS Garnet for use in any of its devices, including the Palm Treo family of smart phones, as well as other handhelds, Access said. The agreement also gives Palm the right to use the Palm OS Garnet in whole or in part in any Palm product, including alongside other system technologies. The agreement comes just over a year after Access bought PalmSource for about $324.3 million. PalmSource was originally the software division of Palm Inc., and wasÂ spun off in October 2003. Â
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In its biggest global push yet, Palm Inc. on Tuesday unveiled a new Treo smart phone for Europeans.
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PalmSource will go after the emerging smart phone market with its latest operating system, looking to grow beyond its core handheld business.
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PalmSource finally unveiled its new OS, version 1.1 of Palm OS Cobalt, as &quot;the first PalmOS designed specifically to support phones&quot;.
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PalmSource has taken the wraps off of its latest smartphone software platform, launching OS Cobalt 6.1 with an eye on drawing more licensees and developers to the company's operating system and improving the performance of converged voice/data devices.
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Palm Inc.  on Wednesday  introduced a compact portable computer to accompany its Treo  smartphone, seeking to regain its competitive edge in the  crowded high-end handheld device market.
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PalmSource ha presentato ufficialmente Cobalt 6.1, sistema operativo sviluppato e dedicato per dispositivi smartphone e wireless. Il nuovo sistema operativo integra componenti per la telefonia GSM e GPRS e
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Palm OS merchant PalmSource is buying mobile phone ISV China MobileSoft (CMS) in a $22.6 million stock deal to tap into the huge Chinese market and the growing popularity of Linux.
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PalmSource today promised a Linux version of its operating system, together with a cut-down offering for use in budget mobiles, after buying mobile phone developer China Mobilesoft.
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(InfoWorld) - Palm introduced a smartphone with a new brand aimed at a younger audience on Thursday. The Centro phone will cost $99.99 and initially be available exclusively from Sprint Nextel starting in mid-October. Palm designed the phone to be cheap, small, and simple to use in an effort to expand the smartphone market, said Ed Colligan, Palm's president and CEO, during a webcast news conference at the DigitalLife conference in New York City. In the U.S. this year, he expects that of the 160 million phones sold, just 8 million will be smartphones. The mass market isn't buying smartphones today because they're big, complex, have clunky designs, and are expensive, he said. "This is not an iPhone killer," Colligan said. The iPhone, with its high price tag, appeals to the relatively small existing smartphone market, while Palm is aiming the Centro at the larger feature-phone segment. The Centro should attract people who traditionally would buy a basic feature phone but now want the second generation, he said. "It's small enough that it competes with the standard feature phone, and it gives the full power of essentially a Treo," he said. College students, young professionals, and "CEOs of households" are the types of people Palm designed the Centro for, he said. The phone runs the Palm OS and operates on Sprint's 3G network. It features a touchscreen and a full keyboard and comes loaded with instant messaging applications from Yahoo, AOL, and Windows Messenger. It also includes push e-mail from corporate Microsoft Exchange servers. While sales of Palm's Treo smartphone line have been strong, the company continues to struggle to record profit gains. It faces stiff competition from the entrenched BlackBerry, other Windows Mobile smartphones, and new entrants like the iPhone. Palm recently stumbled by announcingÂ a smartphone companion device, the Foleo, and then deciding toÂ kill the product just before it was due to ship after much industry criticism of the concept. Palm said it plans to resurrect the product in the future. Palm is developing a new operating system that it expects to unveil next year. It currently sells phones based on its existing software as well as Windows Mobile.
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Palm, one of the world's largest makers of PDAs and smartphones, released the Treo 680 on Wednesday.
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Intrigued by Palm's new "smartphone companion" but not ready to bet on an unproven and probably doomed Linux-based ultra-compact computer? We've got seven attractive options for you.
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Although the long-time smartphone maker will "continue to focus around core business initiatives," it's still unknown whether these initiatives will include a new home-grown, Linux-based version of the Palm OS.