ACCESS Linux Platform – The Choice of a New Generation

For months now, the Palm community has been getting itself all worked up over what operating system will become the successor to Palm OS 5/Garnet.  Will ACCESS/PalmSource deliver ACCESS Linux Platform (ALP) by year’s end?  And what of Palm’s own internal OS development efforts?  Rumors have been swirling around that deep inside their labs, and alternative Linux-based operating system is under development, which I have codenamed “Palm OS II”.  Still others are wondering if Palm won’t just convert to Windows Mobile 5.0 for all of their future devices.

What is NOT going to happen – Windows Mobile

Since the announcement back in September of 2005, Palm executives, including CEO Ed Colligan, have come out in support of the Palm OS.  They have repeatedly stated that using Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 5.0 in some of the company’s Treo smartphones was in no way an indication that Palm was moving away from the Palm OS.  From what Palm has stated in the recent past, I am fairly confident that Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC operating system will not be an exclusive OS in future Palm products.  Furthermore, I don’t expect Windows Mobile to expand beyond the Treo family for the simple reason that corporate customers aren’t buying PDAs; they are buying smartphones.  The use of Windows Mobile in the Treo was done specifically at the request of corporate customers and the wireless carriers.

ACCESS Linux Platform

Before being acquired by ACCESS, PalmSource was working on a new version of the Palm OS called Cobalt.  Originally, it was slated to be called Palm OS 6, however, it was decided that PalmSource would continue to develop Palm OS 5/Garnet and Palm OS 6/Cobalt side-by-side giving hardware developers the option of choosing which OS would work best for their products.  Ultimately, Cobalt was abandoned in favor of a new Linux-based operating system which was given the pre-release name of Palm OS Linux. Later on, PalmSource announced that they had been acquired by Japanese software developer ACCESS.  This move changed a few things.  First, development of Palm OS Garnet and Cobalt was halted.  Secondly, Palm OS Linux would be re-branded as ACCESS Linux Platform, or ALP.  While ALP is still under development, ACCESS has committed to delivering ALP to licensees in early 2007.

At this year’s LinuxWorld conference, ACCESS wanted to make sure that developers knew about their new mobile embedded operating system.  To help show off ALP, ACCESS held a developer’s day during the LinuxWorld show to allow developers to get under the hood of ALP.  While details where slow to come out of the conference, they are now starting to show up on Palm OS community websites.  The first detailed report came from David Beers whose comments where posted on the PalmInfoCenter.com website.

ALP is no longer vaporware

According to Mr. Beers’ report, while most Linux vendors talked up their still under development projects, ACCESS made sure to bring Haier N60 handsets with ALP installed on them.  In addition to the live handsets, the PalmSource booth in the exhibition hall was reportedly well trafficked by developers who wanted to test out their existing Palm OS solutions under ALP.

While ALP is still considered pre-release software, according to Mr. Beers, “PalmSource reports that it is on schedule to meet its end of year deadline for delivery to licensees.”  When compared with what was shown at 3GSM World earlier this year, the differences between the earlier build and the one shown last week are, “pretty dramatic.”

Mr. Beers goes on to report that ALP’s application launcher now more closely resembles the classic Palm OS application launcher, including 5-way navigation support.  This should put Palm customers at ease.  If Palm does decide to use ALP in future products, the new ALP launcher should resemble the current Palm OS 5/Garnet launcher.

ALP would appear to support varying display resolutions.  The demo N60 handsets are reported as having QVGA 240x320 displays, while a “reference board” device had a 480x640 VGA display.  By supporting what appears to be a wide range of screen resolutions, it would seem that ACCESS wants to ensure that their OS will be the perfect match for solution developers.  If Palm where to adopt ALP, could we expect to see a 5x7 mini-tablet?  I have no idea, but the fact that it could be possible means that sooner or later someone will develop a device that uses the new screen resolutions.

ALP applications can be written against one of four APIs: Palm OS Garnet, GTK+, MAX, and Java.  This should allow developers to leverage the languages they are already familiar with to become productive with ALP and write applications quickly.  From a user’s perspective, all the applications appear as icons in the new ALP application launcher regardless of what they are written in..  More good news: ALP’s new Garnet Host (GHost) emulation layer worked well and should run the majority of today’s Palm OS applications with little or no code modification if the developer followed PalmSource’s development guidelines.

Power users, rejoice!  ALP, because it is based on a modern Linux kernel, means that true multitasking will be supported.  Mr. Beers writes, “PalmSource has wisely left it to the judgment of developers to decide whether their applications provide value running in a background thread. Unless specifically written to run in the background after another application is launched, ALP applications will exit and free up memory just as Palm OS applications currently do.”

Diehard Sony Clie fans will be happy to hear that the ACCESS NetFront browser was included in the pre-release build.  No details where available indicating if NetFront will be included as a standard feature in ALP or if it would have to be licensed separately be licensees.

In summation, Mr. Beers writes, “Overall, I was impressed with the progress on ALP and happy to see it in the flesh.”  “And then there is the question that is on every Palm user's mind: will we see ALP on future devices from Palm Inc?”

Keeping their options open

I’ve talked about Palm OS II before in both this column and in the 1SRC podcast.  The thing that I’ve been calling “Palm OS II” is rumored to be an under development alternative Linux-based OS that Palm might be working on.  The revelation that ALP is much farther along in its development cycle than previously believed casts some doubts on whether or not the rumored alternative OS will ever appear on a Palm device.

If there is any company who is capable of developing a ground up embedded mobile operating system, it’s Palm.  They originally developed the Palm OS and seem to have the resources to do it all again.  The question in my mind now is: does it make good economic sense for Palm to develop an in-house mobile OS again.  In the absence of any hard data from Palm, it is impossible for us to know if the in-house developed OS is worth the money to develop or not.  Palm has been playing their cards very close to the vest, and we simply have no idea where things are headed.

In conclusion

The reports coming in from LinuxWorld attendees seems to indicate that ACCESS is making important strides to get ALP finished on time.  They are also working to ensure that the GHost emulation software is running well.  However, Palm enthusiasts are left to wonder just what OS will be used in Palm’s future devices and who’s OS will become the successor to the current Palm OS.  While Palm and ACCESS are in negotiations over a new development agreement, don’t expect any concrete answers until the deal is done.