This Is An Ex-Operating System

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PalmOS is dead. That’s Ed Colligan’s assertion, and given he’s Da Man at Palm, I think we can call that case closed (yes Centro’s will still be sold, but no new models. From here on in you can go Windows Mobile or webOS – so make sure you hold the shift key down on the right letters.

To be honest this doesn’t surprise me. If handspring had bit the bullet when it was formed all those years ago and started with a blank page rather than licence PalmOS back from 3com, they wouldn’t have hit the dead end they did with Garnet.

Palm as a company now is a start-up. The name has history, but it runs a licensed OS and is now debuting its own; backed up by VC money; and hoping the sales of the pre will get them through to the next device. Can they do it? I hope so, to be honest, because the market needs more serious players to keep challenging everyone else.