The company, which was spun out of Palm Inc to give it the independence to win business from Palm’s rivals, had cash and equivalents of just $17.1m at the end of November 2003. It is still loss-making and reported a net loss of $12.9m for the six months to November 30, down from a loss of $19.1m on revenue 2.7% higher at $21m.
The company quoted a report by analysts IDC as forecasting that worldwide shipments of smartphones will increase from approximately 8.6 million units in 2003 to an estimated 72.4 million units in 2007, with Palm OS projected to power 9.0% of these devices by 2007.
The company said revenue from Sony was $3.7m, or 10.9% of the total in the first half while revenue from Handspring was $3.1m, or 9.1% of the total in the same period. PalmSource said that while it has recently expanded the number of licensees, these have yet to introduce products that generate revenues. Additionally, the acquisition of Handspring by Palm has increased customer concentration.
Competitors include Microsoft and Symbian, and it also faces competition from open source operating systems such as Linux, and other software technologies such as Java or technology licensed from Research In Motion Limited.
In its SEC filing, PalmSource revealed it is looking to cut costs by either establishing engineering resources, or outsourcing engineering services in China and India.
This article is based on material originally published by ComputerWire
