Ed, its not really that Palm, Inc. is looking to make some big wave in the marketplace with their license of Palm OS Garnet. They are simply protecting their current investment in the technology, while ACCESS is off building the ACCESS Linux Platform (ALP).
ACCESS has never stated any direction with Palm OS 6 or any new traditional Palm OS platform. They are exlusively focused on ALP. Palm, Inc. just wants to make sure that they are able to maintain the current Palm OS Garnet as long as they see fit.
Now that they've already forked out the $44M for the perpetual license, they can use Garnet for "entry level" Treo's for the forseeable future. They badly needed to get the $200 (subsidized) Treo 680 out the door and if they can push that down to $100, $50, or free in the future, then all the better.
It is known that Palm OS Garnet is just not capable of true 3G data speeds, so it makes sense for Palm, Inc. to use WinMobile for their "high-end" devices and Garnet for their "entry level" devices. There is really no reason they can't continue for a few years just keeping Garnet patched up.
Palm, Inc. is looking at all options these days and I wouldn't be surprised if they use ALP as long as it comes out as planned early next year and is solid. So they may end up with three different OS's for a period of time. Even if they drop Garnet as soon as they have a successful ALP phone launched, by the time they develop it and get it certified, we are talking a year or two out from now at least.
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Tim Nicholson
http://palmzone.net
http://pdamobileweb.com