Palm has been silent about last months announcement of the ACCESS Linux Platform (ALP). But maybe that's just because the earliest time they'd be likely to release a Treo that runs on ALP would be a couple years from now. Palm isn't one to pre-announce products or roadmaps that far in the future. With PalmSource saying that ALP needs another nine months of work before it's ready to release an SDK, Palm might be biding it's time before going public with its judgment about the heir apparent to the Palm OS throne.
What we can say with some confidence is that Palm is quietly working with Linux behind the scenes. The hints that you'll have some kind of Linux running in the Palm of your hand are stronger and more credible than the hints we got a year and a half ago that a Windows Treo would be coming down the pike. For one thing, the anonymous sources that
first informed CNET that Palm was exploring Windows Mobile (correctly as we now know) also reported that similar research was being undertaken into Linux. That leaked out in November of 2004, a month before we learned that PalmSource was acquiring China MobileSoft and charting a Linux future for the Palm OS. Was Palm getting ready for PalmSource's "Palm OS for Linux," or were they looking for other "partnerships" (CNET's word) to build their own Linux alternative? Difficult to say, and after all, these "sources" only were talking about research, not actual products.
More telling are the job openings at Palm over the last 7 months (as far back as I've been watching). In September of last year Palm had openings for 17 Linux engineers on their web site. Today there are 21 positions (16 in engineering) that specifically mention Linux experience as a qualification. Most don't have Linux as prominently in the job title as they did in September, but one tantalizing job description reads in part:
Quote:
Linux Engineer- Mobile Handset, Embedded Systems
Overview:
As a senior software engineer, you will play a key role in the architecture, design and implementation of enabling technologies for a new generation of Palm devices. Working as part of the overall system team, you will work on the underlying support for various software applications.
Duties/Responsibilities:
You will be responsible for the design and development of components of a new software platform.
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"New generation"... "overall system team"... "new software platform"... it does sound unmistakably like Palm is working on their own Linux platform. The job title uses the word "handset", implying that this platform might be intended for a future Treo line, but this conclusion might be undercut by a qualification later in the posting that specifies only "handheld" device experience being a plus (implying that telephony might not be part of the plan for this platform after all). I overanalyze, but you start to get the picture.
There are at least four possible interpretations I could make of this:
- Palm is preparing a full-blown Linux-based version of Palm OS that they can continue to give the Palm name to and have complete control over.
- This is part of the still-secret "Third Business" that Jeff Hawkins says Palm is cooking up. We don't know much about what this new category of device might be, but it might be a different enough animal that Palm would not consider using Palm OS or ALP. No news about this new product line, but for what it's worth, it got mention in the news again yesterday.
- Palm is working in tandem with ACCESS and PalmSource to deliver their own user experience and applications on top of the evolving ALP platform, much as they did for previous versions of Palm OS. I'm doubtful that ACCESS would let a licensee--even Palm--be part of the actual design and building of the platform itself, but perhaps Palm might be given permission to replace the Garnet emulator in ALP with an emulator that runs an updated Palm OS.
- Recognizing that the aging Palm OS Garnet is not going to satisfy their customers for two years until an ALP Treo can be released, they are developing a stop-gap system to buy themselves time. A simple solution: develop something like ALP but without all the extra APIs: just the Palm OS emulator and a few critical native Linux apps like the browser, email, phone, and messaging clients that could run in their own processes to improve the multitasking capability of the platform.
I discuss the last option in
a little more detail here . All four possibilities are probable, but I consider the last one to be the most likely interpretation of what Palm is doing playing around with Linux in their basement. It's conservative and relatively easy but could add a lot of value to the Palm OS platform and (most critically) enable Palm OS to comply with the UMTS standard that GSM operators are using for their 3G networks. At the moment Garnet cannot do this, which is why the 700p is only slated for Sprint's EV-DO network at this time and we don't have hints about versions for Cingular or T-Mobile.