End of an era as Palm OS is abandoned

 

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 13 Feb 2009 at 09:49

Palm has announced that it's ditching Palm OS to put its full weight behind the new webOS operating system.

Palm announced webOS to great fanfare at last month's Consumer Electronics Show. The new OS will first appear on the Palm Pre, which is already being touted as a potential challenger to the iPhone's crown, despite its prototype status.

The positive reaction appears to have convinced the company to cut adrift the ageing Palm OS. The company's CEO and president, Ed Colligan, told investors that there will be "no more Palm OS-based products, we will transition to webOS as our core OS in addition to supporting Microsoft Windows products."

Palm OS was once the market-leading operating system for mobile devices, especially in the PDA era of the mid-to-late 1990s, when devices such as the Palm V adorned the PC Pro A List.

However, the OS struggled in the era of the smartphone, as rivals such as Symbian and Windows Mobile began to gather momentum. New smartphone OSes such as Apple's Mac OS X and Google's Android have only served to further highlight the paucity of Palm OS's interface and capabilities.

The move increases the pressure on cash-strapped Palm to launch the Pre as quickly as possible. Colligan says the company is "completely focused on delivering an integrated solution that is just really great for consumers".

He's also ruled out the short-term possibility of licensing webOS to other smartphone manufacturers, claiming it would only make sense if the platform achieved critical mass.