ACCESS Denied - PalmOS Successor Delayed

[Ed Hansberry]

<a href="http://www.phonescoop.com/news/item.php?n=1996">http://www.phonescoop.com/news/item.php?n=1996</a><br /><br /><i>"ACCESS has updated its website to reveal that it will not release the ALP environment to developers by the end of the year. The company has pushed back the release to sometime in the first half of 2007, when it will reveal the full capabilities of the OS, as well as its official name. By pushing back the OS release to developers, ACCESS has also pushed back the release date of any devices running the new platform. It is unclear that any phones running ALP will be launched next year."</i><br /><br />This probably further justifies Palm, Inc. extending its PalmOS 5 license indefinitely. I am wondering if ALP will ever be available to consumers. If not, it wouldn't be the first all new release of a PalmOS to never sell a single device. If it does ship, I think it would be mid-late 2008 before any devices were available from carriers. I seriously doubt anyone will make an ALP powered device that is just a standalone PDA.

[whydidnt]

Well, it does make you wonder what, exactly Access was acquiring when they paid all that money to buy PalmSource. I guess it was just the Chinese Linux group that PalmSource already had created.

I agree that we will never see a stand-alone PDA that run ALP. Having said that how many more, if any, stand-alone Palm or WM PDA's will we see? I'm sure we'll see a very small number of one or the other to satisfy a niche of the market that doesn't want communication capabilities. Other than that, the market is about gone anyway - killed by lack of innovation by device manufacturers IMO. :(

Not to beat a dead horse, but it is truly amazing how long Palm has managed to squeeze life out of POS. When Garnet released it was a supposed to be a temporary stop on the way to the next version of POS. Here it is, something like 5 years later, and all they have is that same temporary bridge. What the heck have they been doing with R&amp;D dollars over this entire time? I know Cobalt flopped, but did that flop because it was a bad idea, or because Palm and later PalmSource refused to fully invest in it?

[Ed@Brighthand]

I know Cobalt flopped, but did that flop because it was a bad idea, or because Palm and later PalmSource refused to fully invest in it?
Cobalt flopped because it was flawed from the beginning. The people who were in charge of its development were the same people who had created the Be OS, and Cobalt had the same flaws. Basically, it was long on eye candy and short on real functionality.

[Ed@Brighthand]

I am wondering if ALP will ever be available to consumers.
I agree, if I can add "in the U.S. and Europe."

Asia is completely interested in Linux-based devices*, and I'm convinced that the Access Linux Platform (ALP) will find traction in that region of the world.

It's possible that ALP, after collecting a number of licensees in Asia, will return to prominence in the U.S. and Europe. I realize this is something of a long shot, but more unlikely things have happened before.


*Sharp's Linux-based smartphones, which are available only in China, have pushed this company back up into the top tier of mobile device makers.

[Ed Hansberry]

I am wondering if ALP will ever be available to consumers.
I agree, if I can add "in the U.S. and Europe."
good point. Alp will definitely release in Asia.

[Jeff Kirvin]

You're missing the point by referring to ALP as the successor to Palm OS. It's nothing of the sort. It's a Linux variant for use on low-cost smartish phones in China. That's it. Access, a Japanese company, bought PalmSource to get ChinaMobileSoft. By using an American company as an intermediary, this allowed them a back door into the Chinese market, which otherwise wouldn't have been accessible to a Japanese company for political reasons. Palm OS has nothing to do with any of this, and it never will.

This is why Access was okay with such a blanket source code license to Palm for Garnet. They're not using it anyway and don't care about it either way.

Palm, on the other hand, is working on the successor to Garnet, if for no other reason than to give them an alternative to becoming just Yet Another WinMob OEM. They've been hiring Linux developers for years, and the full source license on Garnet allows them the ability to include seamless Garnet backwards compatability in the new OS. I've wondered if the new Palm OS is much more, in fact, than a Linux kernal juggling multiple Garnet virtual machines.

In short, though, the company to watch here is Palm. Unless you care about low cost Chinese feature phones, Access is irrelevant.