Nanjing-based CMS brings 150 employees, about 80 of whom are engineers, to PalmSource. But perhaps more importantly it brings 10 new licensees and a ready-made market in China, where about 30 CMS software-based products are already in circulation, into the so-called Palm Economy.
CMS specializes in the development of an OS-independent application and services framework for mobile handsets, and has also developed its own energy efficient and fast-booting embedded Linux kernel. PalmSource plans to combine these with its own application and user interface capabilities to create a consistent software platform for multiple segments of the mobile handset market.
Versions of the combined software will be created for both Palm OS Cobalt and Garnet, for a range of proprietary handset operating systems and for CMS’s Linux kernel, creating a product tentatively labeled by PalmSource president and CEO David Nagel as Palm OS for Linux. This latter effort, he said, would closely mirror that which PalmSource has already undertaken in porting its Garnet applications and UI to the Cobalt micro-kernel.
Mr Nagel indicated that Palm OS for Linux will, as with the current 32-bit versions of Palm OS, maintain the platform’s backwards-compatibility with its 16-bit roots, presumably through emulation. The move is designed to attract potential licensees with commitments to Linux. These appear largely to be in the Far East, although Mr Nagel did not exclude the possibility of devices based on the platform reaching further abroad.
While PalmSource’s new flirtation with Linux was the focus of much of the teleconference attention, it is the port of PalmSource’s application layer and UI for proprietary handset OSs that is perhaps more interesting longer term.
By 2008 we reckon the total market mobile handsets will be in excess of 800 million. with this we can offer products that address almost the whole of that market. [Today] only around 10 million handsets sold are smart phones. Even if [the segment] continues growing at the current rate for the next few years smart phones will still be a small part of the market, Mr Nagel said in a conference call.
Mr Nagel said PalmSource will be looking to use its new-found reach to exploit manufacturer, operator, and end-user requirements for consistency of experience allied to customizability across their handset ranges.
But while the extension of PalmSource’s potential offers it greater scope for growth, it also brings it into competition with mid-range handset application platform specialists such as Openwave, Esmertec, Access, and Opera, and further blurs the distinction between feature phones and smart phones. It does, however, negate the need for the company to license applications such as web browsers and messaging clients from elsewhere.
While the long-term potential of PalmSource’s purchase of CMS will not be known for some time, it is clear that PalmSource needed to do something to bolster its business.
The Palm OS supporters club was dealt a body blow earlier this year when the platform’s number-two licensee, Sony, withdrew its Palm OS products from all markets except Japan. However, one-time PalmSource sibling PalmOne is far and away the most important licensee of the technology, accounting for around 80% of all Palm OS device sales.
