Almost a decade ago, Palm, Inc. spun off its software division as PalmSource. Palm remained a hardware manufacturer and licensed the operating system it developed called "Palm OS" from its new sister company. PalmSource became responsible for progressing Palm OS, with a dual goal of supporting Palm (their largest customer) and attracting new manufacturers to the platform.

Palm has since acknowledged that dividing up the company was a mistake. PalmSource did not successfully move the platform forward, failing to attract new customers. In fact, not a single hardware manufacturer including Palm adopted PalmSource's "Cobalt" Palm OS 6.

Palm found itself in a difficult situation. Other smartphone operating systems, most importantly Symbian and Windows Mobile, progressed rapidly. To produce competitive Treo and Centro smartphones, Palm had to reenter the software development business or adopt a different platform. They did both.

Palm bought back the exclusive rights to the Palm brand name and negotiated a perpetual license to the Palm OS code. They discontinued their relationship with PalmSource. The company adopted Windows Mobile for some of their new devices, and began working on a new platform due out next year that Palm will entirely control.

When PalmSource appeared to be teetering on the brink of the abyss, ACCESS Co., a Japanese software company, acquired them for $300 million. It was a surprising move -- ACCESS didn't gain rights to the valuable Palm brand name. They also didn't gain any clients from the deal. But it gave ACCESS some interesting advantages.

This year ACCESS released their first new platform with PalmSource. The platform looks like older Palm OS versions. However, it was developed based on Linux, provides true multitasking, improved graphics and single finger navigation. It has a number of other enhancements as well.

Third party applications developed for Palm OS devices work on ACCESS' new platform. So Palm OS customers can migrate to ACCESS without giving up their existing software. Palm OS developers can easily write new applications for ACCESS. Also, most of the existing 30 thousand Palm OS third party software titles can be purchased for use on ACCESS devices.

We wondered if the new ACCESS operating system would allow hardware manufacturers to compete effectively with Windows Mobile. We were curious to talk with management and see the software in action as a result.

Check out our exclusive interview and video demonstration!

Related Links

Direct link to ACCESS interview video

Direct link to ACCESS demonstration video