The Palm platform has reached an extremely difficult point. More than any other time I can think of, events happening this year will determine whether the Palm OS is still around in the future.
How We Got Here
I can explain how we reached this point in one word: Cobalt.
That's the name for the version of the Palm OS released in early 2004. The version that no one wanted.
Palm, Inc., the primary Palm OS licensee, never went into detail exactly why it had no interest in Cobalt. I was told simply that the company didn't think it offered enough benefits over the previous versions to justify the effort it would take to put it on handhelds and smartphones.
What I was told through the grapevine is that the developers PalmSource acquired from Be, Inc. made Cobalt much too heavy on gee-wiz graphical features. While there were lots of practical things in there, too, the graphical stuff made its hardware requirements suitable only for high-end devices. Clearly, it wasn't what was needed.
Having all its licensees completely reject a operating system upgrade was a major black eye for PalmSource, but it wasn't good for the licensees, either.
In recent days, Palm, Inc. has been heavily criticized for only shipping devices based on Palm OS Garnet, a three-year-old operating system. An analyst at Gartner Dataquest recently recommended that large companies looking to implement a mobile solution based on the Palm OS hold off, because the current version probably isn't capable of meeting their needs.
So What Now?
But don't worry, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
Unless you've been living in a cave, you're well aware that PalmSource is basing the next version of the Palm OS on a Linux kernel.
Their hope is that, by using open-source code, developers all around the world will contribute to future versions of this platform by, for example, writing drivers for new types of hardware.
This will take a huge burden off PalmSource, and allow it to concentrate on the fundamentals of developing a mobile operating system.
At the same time, Linux is a very flexible operating system. It has been used on everything from mobile phones to web servers. If done right, it can power future Palm OS models that span the range from entry-level smartphones to very high end handhelds.
The big question is, of course, after having rejected Cobalt, will PalmSource's licensees finally give up Garnet and move to the Linux-based version?
As I see it, they have no choice.
Palm, Inc. has committed to putting out Palm OS devices at least through 2009. It simply can't hope to continue to use Garnet until then. As I mentioned earlier, this operating system is really starting to show its age.
This company has worked hard to make Garnet do things it was never meant to do, but these custom modifications tend to make Palm's latest devices buggy and crash-prone. This isn't good for users or developers.
Palm will have to give up Garnet eventually, and now is the time.
Around the middle of this year, PalmSource will introduce Palm OS for Linux (although it won't be called that).
I predict that Palm will release its first devices based on this operating system in October.
And Palm won't be the only one. I'm sure PalmSource's latest licensee, LG, will put out its own Palm OS Linux smartphones later this year, too. And other companies will follow in the coming months.
This will go a long way toward putting the Palm OS back on track, and that whole Cobalt debacle can -- thankfully -- be put behind us.
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