Saturday, July 29, 2006
Trouble Between Palm and Palmsource
Posted by Ed Hansberry in "THE COMPETITION" @ 04:30 PM
http://investor.palm.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1193125-06-155911
"Contemporaneously with the license agreement, we entered into a co-development agreement with PalmSource to develop a next-generation Palm OS for use in future Palm products. PalmSource did not timely meet certain of the milestones under the co-development agreement, relieving us of our obligation to make minimum royalty payments under the license agreement after calendar year 2006. We are presently in negotiations with PalmSource to expand our development and distribution rights to the current version of the Palm OS. If we are unable to successfully conclude these negotiations, it may adversely affect our ability to develop and distribute new products based on a next-generation version of the Palm OS. Regardless, we will continue to release new products based on the current version of the Palm OS." - (Emphasis added)
Well, I'm not sure what milestones were missed, but I suspect by now, Palm wanted either a new OS or at least being much farther along. If an agreement cannot be reached, Palm still has the option of making more PalmOS 5/Garnet devices, which is already about five years old. That effectively locks them out of the European market with a PalmOS device as true multitasking is required for the newer high speed networks.
Of course, Microsoft hasn't failed to meet their milestones, so more Windows Powered Palm devices seem a certainty. :)
"Contemporaneously with the license agreement, we entered into a co-development agreement with PalmSource to develop a next-generation Palm OS for use in future Palm products. PalmSource did not timely meet certain of the milestones under the co-development agreement, relieving us of our obligation to make minimum royalty payments under the license agreement after calendar year 2006. We are presently in negotiations with PalmSource to expand our development and distribution rights to the current version of the Palm OS. If we are unable to successfully conclude these negotiations, it may adversely affect our ability to develop and distribute new products based on a next-generation version of the Palm OS. Regardless, we will continue to release new products based on the current version of the Palm OS." - (Emphasis added)
Well, I'm not sure what milestones were missed, but I suspect by now, Palm wanted either a new OS or at least being much farther along. If an agreement cannot be reached, Palm still has the option of making more PalmOS 5/Garnet devices, which is already about five years old. That effectively locks them out of the European market with a PalmOS device as true multitasking is required for the newer high speed networks.
Of course, Microsoft hasn't failed to meet their milestones, so more Windows Powered Palm devices seem a certainty. :)
