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I can give you a bit more info straight from the top.... Ed Colligan and Patrick McVeigh, the "top dogs" at PalmOne and PalmSource.
They were pretty closed about the process leading up to the agreement, but PalmSource got something out of it. Over the next years, they will be rebranded to some new name representing the platform they provide, and it will not be "Palm." They get lots of money, and that can go directly towards Cobalt on Linux where they have many things they want to accomplish. It really is their future, and there are apparently great hopes of enticing new licensees once they get there.
For one thing, phone manufacturers doing advanced things are finding they need a nice multitasking multithreaded environment. I suppose Cobalt already provides that, but probably even more so with Cobalt on Linux. That means they can choose Microsoft and hefty licensing fees, or... PalmOS. And I guess a few other proprietary players, but openness seems to be greatly desired.
At any rate, the point I'm trying to make is that their future licensees probably don't want to have strong Palm branding. They want their devices to not point to Palm, especially if PalmOne is a competitor.
On the other hand, the advantage is obvious for PalmOne. They have been limited in what they can do with the branding when they share it with PalmSource. If they decide in 10yrs to offer devices on another platform, they want people to look at Palm as the best mobile device maker, not the company that makes devices using PalmOS.
I think it's a win-win situation for everyone except those of us that are attached to the idea that the heart of Palm is really PalmOS, not the devices. But for the sake of the platform's success, I guess we just have to trust the leadership that it's best for all.
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