Palm To Purchase Be's IP

There's been a lot of rumours swirling around an imminent buyout of Be's IP given their current cash situation. But I wouldn't have thought of Palm as a potential suitor - but a story in the subscription only area of today's WSJ indicates it to be true. Hopefully a non-pay service will get the story soon - but looks like Palm is trying to beef up its software side, and wants to get some Be's engineers.Update: 08/16 02:16 PM by H :Looks like C|Net has the details - 11 million USD in Palm stock for the purchase of Be.

Comments

Surprising? No...

[pev]

Well, it's only surprising to us that have been following Be for several years as it was expected to be Sony (Their only current major customer) that buys them.

As for Palm, well they've been in the market for a new kernel for a while now, and BeIA being very slick is perfect for them. Its established (technically, not commercially) and deals exceptionally well with real time media and networking - the kind of things Palm want to build upon for appeal.

The real question is where does that live the desktop OS that showed som much promise? As expected of a slashdot reader, I';ve got to say 'I hope it going to be made open source/GPL/Free/wibbleware' or similar words. Well, who knows... I just hope it doesnt vanish away... Press release here.

BeIA was the likely target

[mblase]

Doubtless Palm was after not the desktop BeOS, but the BeIA internet appliance operating system. BeIA has, to date, only been sold to Sony for the eVilla gizmo, but that probably won't earn Sony much money. But if Palm can combine BeIA with their own PalmOS, they could really give PocketPC a run for the market.

Kernel for ARM-based devices?

[kdgarris]

I wonder if Palm wants to use the Be kernel for the next generation of ARM-based devices. Note that PalmOS already runs on top of a different kernel (AMX, I think), licensed from another company.

-Karl