The tangled saga of Palm’s operating system is going to get twistier, if an announcement at an analyst meeting in New York by Palm CEO Ed Colligan is any indication: later this year, the company plans to combine its existing Garnet OS with a new Linux-based platform. Switching to Linux would mean that Palm would once again have its own operating system—even though late last year it managed to secure a perpetual license to the Garnet OS, which it originally developed, from Access Systems Americas. The deal includes the right to modify the Garnet source code.
Tag Archive: Garnet OS
PalmOS to be Renamed GarnetOS
The current owners of the Palm OS, Access Company, have announced a new branding campaign to replace its “Palm Powered” slogan and logo with a new one: “Access Powered.” As part of the effort, the Palm OS operating system will be renamed GarnetOS.
Although Garnet has been the codename for versions of the Palm OS used in a variety of devices (including shipping Treo smartphones), the name change is the latest convolution in the saga of the Palm brand and the once market-leading Palm OS. Just last month, Palm bought itself a perpetual license for the Palm OS and announced it will take over much of the operating systems’ development; the purchase was ironic since Access bought PalmSource, which had been spun off from PalmOne back in 2003.
Palm Buys Perpetual License for Palm OS
Palm Inc. has announced it is paying $44 million to Access Systems Americas (formerly PalmSource, Inc.) for a perpetual license to the source code for Palm OS Garnet, the version of the Palm operating system used in several Palm handheld computer and smartphones, including the entries in the company’s Treo line which aren’t running Windows Mobile. And here’s a neat trick: Palm isn’t making any additional license fees over time, and the company won’t be paying a cent until its third fiscal quarter of 2007, at which pont it will make a single payment to Access Systems which will be expensed out over the next several years.

