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Palm Pulls the Plug On Palm OS

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the now-my-palms-wont-operate dept.

BobB-nw writes to tell us that Palm has decided to kill their PalmOS operating system and is instead betting their future on a still mostly unknown Palm webOS. Very little is known about the new Palm webOS, but it will supposedly support HTML5 and enable a local data store so that applications can be used both online and off. All of this is rolled into a Linux framework with a message bus based on JSON. Will be interesting to see where they take it.

4 of 300 comments (clear)

  1. This is old news by metamatic · · Score: 5, Informative

    You're half there.

    Access owned PalmOS, and in fact PalmOS was killed in late 2005 when Access ceased development and moved to the Linux-based ALP (Access Linux Platform).

    This announcement is actually just Palm admitting that they can't afford to release any more hardware that uses an OS that's been dead for nearly 4 years.

    --
    GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
  2. Misleading story by metamatic · · Score: 5, Informative

    First off, Palm don't own PalmOS. It's owned by Access, who bought PalmSource.

    Secondly, PalmOS's plug was pulled back in 2005, when Access announced no further development work would be done on it.

    Thirdly, Palm didn't *decide* to pull the plug; their license from Access to ship new PalmOS devices expired, so they have no choice.

    I wrote about all this back in 2005 when the news went around. I guess everyone's forgotten.

    --
    GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
  3. Re:Who or what is the target for WebOS? by Baricom · · Score: 5, Informative

    Apple's so-called "API" consisted of a keynote where they recommend making web pages that looked like native iPhone apps, but ran over the Internet in Mobile Safari. Palm's API is web-based, but the HTML/CSS/JavaScript will be stored and executed on the device, and JavaScript will be extended with hooks into phone-specific functionality. The difference is apples (no pun intended) to oranges.

  4. Re:amazing stupidity by Evanisincontrol · · Score: 5, Informative

    I used to get 5 mod points per "round". I typically 15 mod points at a time these days. I'm guessing my positive karma and semi-long (~5 years I think?) history on Slashdot is the reason for that. In any case, they definitely give out more than 3 mod points at a time to many people.