Palm Platform in Doubt

Unstrung writes that "Palm (PALM) has run into what could be a crippling impasse with PalmSource, the maker of the long-in the-tooth Palm operating system." According to Palm's annual report, "PalmSource (PSRC) -- now owned by Japanese software maker Access Co. Ltd. -- has failed to meet certain obligatory "development milestones," and that Palm will cease making the agreed-upon royalty payments to PalmSource as of December of this year."

Carmi Levy at Info-Tech Research Group said, "The now-ancient Palm OS 5 suffers from a paucity of enterprise-friendly features, such as robust security, VPN capability and, most notably, an inability to multitask. It should have been put out to pasture long ago, but Palm has dropped the ball enough times in the interim that most enterprises can’t be blamed for looking elsewhere. It’s impossible to plan a mobile roadmap when the vendor lacks a roadmap of its own."