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Hong Kong-based Group Sense PDA Limited (GSPDA) demonstrated three new Palm-based smartphones at the CTIA Wireless 2005 trade show and conference in New Orleans last week. The three new models—Xplore M28, Xplore M68, and Xplore M98—were the first Palm OS handsets introduced for the U.S. market in some time.

Behind the scenes, at a meeting with Palm platform developer PalmSource and GSPDA, we received a preview of what could be the first smartphone built on the next-generation Palm operating system (OS), Cobalt.

Although GSPDA only showed us a mock non-working version of the upcoming handset (we were not allowed to take pictures), the unnamed new smartphone appeared to more heavily integrate audio and visual features than the new phone models listed above—all built on Palm OS Garnet (5.4). It wasn't much bigger than the just announced and rather small candy-bar style Xplore M68 either.

The GSPDA representative told us its Cobalt handsets would be more data centric with greater support for 3D graphics and entertainment than its current Palm-based phones. He also said the mockup was one of a number of possible different form factors its Cobalt phones would take.

GSPDA would also ship Cobalt smartphones with and without cameras—a common practice to make handsets more attractive to the business community because of security concerns. Memory could range anywhere from 64 MB to 512 MB, with an amount closer to the smaller number more likely at first.

The first GSPDA Cobalt smartphone should ship during the second half of the year.

Linux & Cobalt
At the same meeting, PalmSource VP of business development Albert Chu explained a bit more about how the acquisition of China Mobile Soft (CMS) would affect the company and the Palm OS in general.

17 licensees in 58 phone models in China use CMS software. It is also one of the top three independent mobile software vendors in the country.

First up, PalmSource would like CMS's applications to become qualified for more standards around the world. For example, its MMS (Multimedia Message Service) application is certified for China but not internationally.

As many of you already know, PalmSource plans to create a version of Palm OS Cobalt based on a Linux smartphone platform developed by CMS.

Chu told us the company views Linux as a strategic move, one that is also being explored by many handset vendors and carriers, principally outside of the U.S. The Chinese government, in particular, has made Linux support at all levels of technological development an important goal.

From our conversation, it became apparent that the Linux edition of Cobalt might soon become the main version of the Palm platform moving forward. It would be capable of running standard Palm applications through an emulation layer. The company also plans to make as many of CMS’s current lineup of mobile software Palm OS compatible as well.

PalmSource would not force licensees to use Palm OS Linux if they don't want too, asserted Chu. The platform developer would continue to support the "regular" version of the Palm Platform in parallel to the Linux edition.

The Palm platform provider plans to offer technical details on Palm OS Linux at its annual Developer Conference from May 23-26 in San Jose, California.

In related news, the Consumer Electronics Linux Forum (CELF), accepted PalmSource as a member earlier this month. CELF is an open standards-based consortium that encourages the adoption of Linux for the development of consumer electronics devices.

In addition to the Palm platform provider there are 49 other CELF members, including founders Matsushita, Sony, Hitachi, NEC, Royal Philips Electronics, Samsung Electronics, Sharp, and Toshiba.

More on Cobalt
Palm OS Cobalt offers a new GSM, MUX, and a GPRS API to ease and speed up the creation of Palm-based smartphones by manufacturers.

It also supports NAND ROMs through an automatic backup and restore feature that prevents loss of user data in low power situations and during battery removal. (Licensee palmOne already integrated this last feature into Palm OS Garnet with its Treo 650 smartphone and Tungsten T5 PDA.)

Bluetooth and Wi-Fi wireless networking, one-handed and five-way navigation, and SDIO (Secure Digital In Out) become standard parts of the Palm OS with Cobalt. Multitasking and multithreading also finally find their way into the platform as well.

Other Cobalt features include Chinese Language support, of course, and the ability to handle displays up to VGA (640 x 480 pixels) in resolution. This last attribute should help Palm vendors compete with the rash of VGA-enabled Pocket PCs making their way to market.

Cobalt also supports mesh networks, metro Wi-FI, and Wi-Max, plus 2.5 and 3G cellular technologies. It also improves compatibility with Microsoft Office and Outlook, with past versions of Palm OS, and with other enterprise software.