Palm OS Spinoff

iCharles writes "According to this SEC filing per this Palm Infocenter story, it would appear that Palm is spinning off its OS devision. I'm a Handspring user, so it sounds quite interesting to me."

The lagging might stop...

[Squideye]

Of course, Handspring tends to customize their OSes heavily to fit their hardware. 3.1H and 3.5.2H(x) are relatively substantial retrofits. I love the fact that the PalmOS is such a streamlined, efficient tool. I think as its own company, focused on the OS, they could really do some good. OTOH it could shake Palm's grip on the market further... but if the market really expands, hey, maybe there's room.

Hasn't this always...

[Tim_F]

been the plan? Even if it hasn't, it is never the less a good idea. It will put 3Com on the same footing as all the other PalmOS licensees. They will no longer have access to the latest features. We may also see the advances that are really needed to fully squash PowerPC (2002? I think that's the latest version) come from Palm, as opposed to licensees. The licensees won't have to work quite as hard to differentiate themselves from the Pocket PC devices. The really great advances will be standard across the majority of the devices.

No Linux in Sight

[GrouchoMarx]

Several posters so far have speculated on what this all means for Linux on the Palm. In truth, it means absolutely nothing.

When Palm eventually moves to ARM-based hardware, I'm sure we'll see creative, inventive people making Linux ROM images for the hardware the same as they have for the iPAQ. But they won't be coming from Palm Solutions (the hardware/parent company), and I sincerely doubt they will be coming from any of the licensees. Why jump ship from a platform that had 80% of the retail market in August of this year, in addition to 80%-90% of the market for the past six years? That's foolish.

In addition, there is a world of difference between a Linux PDA and a Palm PDA. The PalmOS is built from the ground up as a handheld, all-in-RAM, XIP OS. Linux is originally a server OS. Yes, there has been absolutely astounding work in recent years in bringing Linux into embedded systems, but that's not enough. The paradigm of Linux is the same as the paradigm of the PocketPCs; a file system. The PalmOS has no file system, save for on expansion cards which are a new development. It's a database-like in-RAM format. That's what makes it so fast. You can get better performance out of a 33MHz Palm than you do out of a 150MHz PocketPC. There's a fundamental archetectural reason for that. Sure, Linux and Win32 may be familiar for many developers, but in order to do it right you need an archetecture and API that is designed for that type of system.

There's also the UI issue. The Palm UI was designed with Mac-like simplicity and consistency from the get-go. (Not surprising, considering that the majority of the founders were ex-Apple ane ex-Newton people.) The "Zen of Palm", alternately the subject of praise and flame wars, is really what made this organizer work as a portable computer. For cultural reasons, Linux doesn't have that. We (Slashdot readers) put up with a great deal more disparity in UI across a Linux desktop than a handheld user is willing to deal with. Simply throwing KDE or QT at it won't solve the problem of a UI that is consistent, learnable, and has almost zero learning curve.

Sure, a company could take the Linux kernel and tools and write a Palm-esque interface for it, and rewrite the guts enough to be naturally resource-based XIP. But by that point, you're almost writing a new OS to start with. And every company is going to have their own "redux Tux", which means you won't be able to generate a single executable file that you can throw on any device, the way you can with a Palm. One truism of the Open Source / Free Software (whichever camp you are in) movement is a lack of unity in APIs and UI. That will kill any mass market attempt at a handheld. The market is not interested in a device you can tweak and customize and recompile. It wants a device you can charge, pickup, and use. And at least right now, Linux is not that.

Re:Spinning off an OS division. What about BeOS?

[GrouchoMarx]

Palm's reasoning behind buying Be was very sound. They didn't want the BeOS codebase. It doesn't fit into a handheld. Neither does BeIA, which is designed for the niche-that-wasn't "Internet Appliance". They wanted the people who wrote a multithreaded, multitasking, multimedia OS in the first place.

Palm: Hey, you guys wrote a super cool OS for the desktop that rocked, and you did it relatively quickly, too.
Be engineers: Thanks!
Palm: We've got to write a new OS for the ARM archetecture that is fast, multimedia-ready, and backward compatible. Think you can do it?
Be engineers: Uhhh...
Palm: Here's $11 million, we just bought what's left of your company.
Be engineers: Sure!

Don't look for BeOS to appear on the Palm anytime soon. Look for the same kind of cool developments on the Palm, this time with a market share that can actually appreciate all that hard work.

Re:Clever move, but late

[mj6798]

Give the handheld a VGA output port and good headphones (maybe even Bluetooth) and all of a sudden PowerPoint and MP3 on a handheld are very attractive to a lot of people.

Re:hercules using arm?

[martyn s]

Microsoft doesn't have such a stronghold on the handheld market. If you're in the mainstream making PCs, there is simply no other option but to package it with windows. Here, if microsoft tried to bully compaq or anyone, I don't think they'd be so reluctant to just switch over to Palm. So, either they start using Palm OS without trouble, or they try using it, then Microsoft gives them an ultimatum and compaq calls their bluff. Either way, I definitely see it happening

Also, since the OS division will be it's own company, they can also sell versions of Palm OS for the different hardware available. Like even if Compaq continues exclusively using wince, PalmOS can just compile the OS for the StrongARM processor, etc. And I don't know about the other companies, but compaq would not have a problem with that...they've been very supportive with using linux on the iPAQ. And that makes it seem more likely Compaq will start selling iPaqs with palm.

Lets not forget...

[cr@ckwhore]

Lets not forget they recently picked up BeOS... I have a feeling that Palm is either staging their deaths, or trying gain some new market position in a brilliant manner. Its going to be really interesting to watch.

Re:The lagging might stop...

[Milican]

I have done some programming on the Handspring and I didn't notice any heavy customizations. The OS was entirely the same except for a few extensions (try and catch API) for the Springboard slot. The rest was vanilla PalmOS. Thats the way it should be and thats what makes it completely compatible with all PalmOS applications. So in my opinion there is no substantial retrofit. Just an extension. This is of course, from an application programmers point of view, not a porting programmer that designed the OS. Any dissenting and enlightening views are appreciated.

JOhn