New Palm OS To Use Linux
Because the Linux news doesn’t stop today: Palm announced this morning that the company plans to deliver a new Linux and open source based mobile platform later this year. Rumors to this effect have been swirling for some time and in fact Palm has previously used parts of the Linux kernel in its OS.
Details are few at this point, but Colligan did say during a Palm Analyst Day speech, that the reason for the switch was improving the user experience (better WiFi etc) and adding greater hardware flexibility, an issue that has plagued the Palm OS in recent years.
Colligan also said that the new platform has been under construction “in house” for a number of years. Interestingly Palm will not license the new OS to outside hardware companies. Perhaps Palm is trying to take a page from the Apple playbook?
Not only is the lack of licensing unusual for a handset OS, but the switch to Linux-based OS resembles in some ways Apple’s move to the BSD platform for OS X.
But Palm isn’t the only mobile OS moving to Linux. Symbian has already announced it plans to support tools that will make it easier to port applications from Unix to the Symbian OS.
Tech News World ran a story last week about the growing use of Linux in the mobile world positing that as handset prices decline, many manufacturers are focusing on the cost of the software elements as a means of raising profit margins.
Because Linux-based systems don’t have the licensing fees of Windows Mobile and other proprietary solutions, the manufacturers are increasingly turning to Linux.
Tech News World cites a recent ABI report that suggests Linux will make up 14 percent of the mobile OS market by 2012.
A full audio recording of Cooligan’s talk can be found on the Palm site.
