PalmSource today announced plans to buy China Mobile Soft Limited (CMS). The acquisition not only enhances the platform provider’s presence in the most populous country in the world, it helps the company expand beyond the current parameters of the Palm operating system (OS) for mobile handsets.

CMS offers a Linux-based phone platform that PalmSource will use to create a Linux version of the Palm platform. This Linux-based Palm platform should feature the same interface and software frameworks as Palm OS Garnet and Palm OS Cobalt, which will continue to be supported. As a result, it'll be capable of running all traditional Palm software.

So if the difference to the end-user is minimal, why Linux?

There’s the ever-increasing popularity of the open source platform around the world, particularly in Asia. The idea is to leverage Linux to attract more licensees, who in turn would build more mobile devices on the Linux version of the Palm OS.

The company also views support for new hardware (e.g. processors) and software (e.g. drivers) coming more easily by working within an open platform like Linux. There is also the not insignificant factor of bringing thousands of Linux developers from around the world into the Palm camp, as seen by an open letter sent by PalmSource to the open source community outlining the purpose of its move to Linux.

"We think the combination of Palm OS and Linux can attract more mobile licensees and developers, create more new devices, and bring in more users than either could on its own," Mike Kelley, PalmSource vice president of engineering wrote in the open letter.

"Participating in the open source development of Linux is a natural extension of our culture," he continued. "Our business has always been based on open innovation. Unlike certain other mobile platform companies, we encourage licensees to make changes to our OS, and we don't put onerous restrictions on what sort of hardware they can create. Also, we try not to prey on our application developers; we rely on them to provide many of the most important features of our platform."

PalmSource made it clear, however, that the move does not mean that Palm OS will be open sourced, though CEO David Nagel, in a conference call yesterday, and the letter both noted that certain aspects of the code might be contributed back to the open source community.

David Nagel, CEO of PalmSource, reminded the conference call that this would not be PalmSource's first foray into the open source community. Earlier this year, the company announced a new free developer toolkit based on Eclipse. PalmSource is also a member of the Eclipse Foundation.

Nagel continued, "We believe the combination of PalmSource, CMS, and Linux gives us the technological and market critical mass to compete with even the biggest proprietary operating system companies."

PalmSource also expects the acquisition of CMS to help give it a leadership position as a software provider for phones and mobile devices. CMS and its subsidiaries offer a wide range software for mobile phones, including more than a dozen currently deployed in over 30 different current models.

The company said it would give all CMS applications and platform software the Palm OS look-and-feel and data compatibility, extending the Palm OS ease-of-use to all classes of mobile phones worldwide.

What that could mean to the end user is a wider range or handsets built on the Palm platform. Right now, Palm-based smartphones are priced out most people’s range. If PalmSource’s plans come to fruition, you may not need fork over four hundred dollars or more to get a Palm phone in the future, as entry-level smartphones could finally be in the cards.

PalmSource has not set a shipping date for the Linux product, but it expects to disclose more information at its spring developer conference.

Embedded Share
Palm has been on the steady decline in terms of market share in the embedded OS market of late. According to a pair of recent studies, the embedded crown now rests with Microsoft.

Gartner Research reported that Microsoft beat Palm in third-quarter 2004 PDA OS shipments, marking the first time that Microsoft has beaten the perennial PDA OS leader in the category that Palm helped to create. Palm OS shipments declined by 28 percent, and its market share fell from 46.9 percent in the third quarter of 2003 to 29.8 in in the third quarter of this year. Windows CE recorded 32.6 percent growth and saw its share hit 48.1 percent up from 41.2 percent last year.

Vendors have been fleeing Linux as an OS for PDAs, with Linux having a growth rate of negative 49.5 percent and reporting only a 0.9 percent market share in Gartner's data.

But in the embedded marketplace, Linux has been gaining favor. Trolltech, Wind River and MontaVista Software have all made inroads in the embedded space.