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Palm counts on beefed-up OS

By Ian Fried, CNet, 10 June, 2002 08:49

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Microsoft, Handheld, PDA, Windows, Palm, Pocket PC, os 5

NEWS
Palm is hoping a beefed-up version of its operating system will give the company a shot in the arm. The company plans to announce Monday that the unit responsible for creating and licensing the operating system has shipped Palm OS 5 to its developers. The new operating system is designed to pave the way for hardware makers to create Palm OS handhelds using more powerful processors based around chip designs from England's ARM. The OS also adds improved security, sound and networking features. The release of OS 5 is positive news for Palm, which warned 10 days ago that sales would fall well short of expectations for the quarter that just ended and the current quarter, which runs through the end of August. "The market is soft," said David Nagel, chief executive of PalmSource, the operating-system subsidiary of Palm. Palm plans to fully separate the OS business from its hardware operation later this year. With demand likely to remain sluggish at least through the summer, both the OS unit and the hardware group are counting on OS 5 and new products based on the operating system to help spur demand. Palm has already said it will come out with a wireless handheld this autumn that is similar to an m505 but runs the new OS and is capable of making mobile phone calls and receiving data wirelessly. With the move to ARM, handhelds running Palm OS 5 will be equipped with the same types of chips that have powered devices running Microsoft's rival Pocket PC. However, Palm applications that completely harness the power of the new chips aren't likely to crop up in large numbers anytime soon. It will take about a year for the new ARM-based handhelds to fully supplant those running the older DragonBall chips in the product lineups at Palm and others. "At that point you'll start to see development of ARM-based applications," Nagel said. "We're not doing much to encourage them to do that at this point." For the time being, Palm is focusing on keeping compatibility with its current programs and maintaining the ease of use that has been the hallmark of the Palm operating system. "I still think that (ease of use) is the reason that people buy our products," Nagel said. Not all programs will run on the new OS, but Palm has said it hopes that about 80 percent of older programs will. Sony, which has been pushing the limits of the Palm OS and the DragonBall most aggressively, praised the new operating system. "We are very excited by the impending release of Palm OS 5," said Sony handheld unit President Masanobu Yoshida, in a statement. "We will continue to contribute to the Palm camp, with this powerful OS 5, working together with PalmSource and the Palm developer community." Palm first announced its intent to migrate the operating system to ARM-based chips more than two years ago. At the time, Palms were in short supply and analysts predicted huge growth in the industry. Instead, the market declined, along with the stock price of Palm and Handspring. Separately, Palm is announcing Monday that it is adding upstart graphics chipmaker MediaQ to its program that qualifies chips for use with the Palm operating system.
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