Palm developing a new Linux PalmOS from scratch?
By Ryan Block 
posted Mar 30th 2006 9:45AM
posted Mar 30th 2006 9:45AM
So David Beers at PikeSoft
claims to have it on authority (from an analyst -- ahem!) that Palm itself may be planning the "true"
successor to the PalmOS, Access be damned. A little backgrounder for those who've drifted: after PalmOne bought
the Palm name and PalmSource sold to
Access, the PalmOS was renamed to ALP
(Access Linux Platform), and we've been expecting it to primarily take hold in the Asian market, while PalmOS 5
(Garnet) ages ungracefully and eventually withers away in the US. So the idea that Palm would double back and resurrect
the PalmOS with a new Linux-based version is by no means out of the question -- in fact, it's something we predicted
might happen last year. And according to Beers, their Palm insider says they have a prototype of the new Linux OS on a
Treo 650, and that the "new operating system will be introduced in 2007." As much as we'd like to believe
Palm would pull a rabbit out of their hat with this one and give us the completely rebuilt, completely redesigned
PalmOS to end all PalmOSs, we have to keep in mind that it takes years to build a robust smartphone operating system,
and even if they started last year immediately after buying the Palm name, 2007 still seems like an incredibly
aggressive launch date. Make no mistake about it, though, Palm developing a new PalmOS from scratch? We're all about
it.[Via Gadgets On The Go]
I just want to clarify that the story is from David Beers, I linked to his aticle and gave full credit on my site. I just wanted to clarify things. David Beers is the one with inside information, I linked to his article, and posted some of my thoughts.
Yes, it probably would take them years to build a robust smartphone operating system, but Linux is already a robust embedded operating system. And customising it to suit their smartphone-related needs is nowhere near as ambitious as writing a brand-new operating system from scratch, which is the entire point of basing the new PalmOS on Linux in the first place.
I agree with Matthias: Palm almost certainly has licensed a commercial mobile Linux platform like MontaVista's Mobile Linux, TrollTech's QTopia, or even PalmSource's ALP (sans the MAX framework which is still under construction and possibly not of interest to Palm anyway). No reason to do this "from scratch" when there's plenty of work to be done turning an existing platform into something that can reasonably be called "Palm OS."
I should also point out that the same source that first reported that Palm was producing a Windows Mobile Treo (correctly as we now know) also reported in Nov '04 that Palm was seeking partners to help it build a Linux platform. So there's likely to have been some work going on with Linux for as long or longer than the Windows Mobile project at Palm.
uhm Yeah. This is old news and I can confirm it, I was sitting in the press release palm building at 3GSM Barcelona when they made this announcment.
http://www.mopocket.com/2006/02/palm_os_goes_linux.php
Justin, read the article and the blurb. This is about Palm (the hardware company formerly known as PalmOne) making their own Linux-based OS, not ACCESS (the software company that bought PalmSource) releasing ALP, as shown in your link.
It's interesting to see that the two entities who used to be one are now going head to head against each other! Let the fun times begin =D