PalmSource sees future on phones

Palm OS developer PalmSource is moving beyond its roots in PDAs to become a provider of phone software. The company intends to address the entire handset market instead of just the high-end where its current Treo models sit, but PalmSource may find it difficult to attract enough phone makers to compete effectively against rivals Microsoft and Symbian.

At this month's 3GSM World Congress in Cannes, PalmSource detailed its new line-up, including the Linux-based mFone platform gained when it bought China Mobilesoft (CMS). While mFone is already a complete smartphone solution in China, PalmSource hopes to gain greater worldwide market share by porting the Palm OS environment to run on Linux. This will allow makers to put Palm OS onto so-called feature phones, which make up a much larger part of the market than the costlier smartphone models served by Palm OS Cobalt and Garnet.

John Cook, PalmSource's marketing director for operating systems and tools, said that there is a synergy between Palm OS and Linux, as PalmSource could bring its interface and personal information management (PIM) to Linux, which in turn has strong driver support for a wide range of hardware. "The open-source community does lots of good things under the hood," he said. "So we're not doing our own version of Linux, but will instead build on [others']."

Cook said a release date for Palm OS on Linux should be decided before the PalmSource Mobile Summit and Developer Conference in San Jose in May.

PalmSource also plans to make its PIM applications available for basic phone handsets. Under this scheme, handset makers will be able to put the Palm Address Book, Date Book, and To Do List onto their phones with the same look and data format as full Palm OS devices. This will require some adaptation to fit handsets with no touchscreen, Cook said.

The company is also moving to support the open-standard SyncML data synchronisation protocol instead of its own HotSync technology. SyncML is already supported by many mobile middleware server systems, so handsets with SyncML and Palm-compatible PIM tools could attract firms where staff already run Palm OS PDAs.

PalmSource's strategy is to work closely with the phone makers that will be its licensees, said European marketing director Jean-Marc Holder. "We believe the best way to be successful is to offer solutions for specific segments," he said. The CMS acquisition is key to this, as the Chinese company has relationships with many Far Eastern handset makers, Holder added. Holder said he believed PalmSource could compete in the phone market because it will offer a complete, open solution. "Microsoft has huge resources, but many of its customers worry about the company's power," he said. As for Symbian OS, Holder said it is only "a partial solution", because phone makers still have to add a user interface.