PalmSource, best known as the developers of the Palm OS, has been purchased by ACCESS for over $300 million USD.
The acquisition of PalmSource is expected to further extend ACCESS’ leadership as a provider of mobile content delivery and Internet access software for mobile devices worldwide. The combination of Palm OS with ACCESS’ software products is expected to give ACCESS one of the broadest lines of mobile software in the industry, as well as extend its market opportunity. With this acquisition, ACCESS gains operating system platform expertise and Linux development resources for mobile devices in the U.S., France and China. Rather than a one way ticket to the OS graveyeard, the Palm OS version 5.x will be combined with the Linux-based NetFront browser. And ACCESS is also thinking of taking a closer look at Palm OS version 6.0 (Cobalt).
ACCESS still needs to reverse the waning interest in the Palm OS. It will be interesting to see how they attempt to do that.