Palm Touts Host Of New Features In OS 5

Palm's partners said OS 5, originally scheduled to ship in the second half of this year but bumped up to an earlier development cycle, will help drive more communication-centric PDAs and streamline development of higher-end capabilities.

Key features of Palm's 32-bit OS include support for ARM processors from 70MHz to 700MHz and 802.11b, as well as enhanced screen resolution, said Steve Sakoman, chief products officer at PalmSource, a division of Palm spun off earlier this year to focus on developing and licensing the Palm OS.

The new OS also offers new security and multimedia APIs and a built-in VPN client. Products based on the new OS will be backward-compatible with older Palm applications, Sakoman added.

Palm expects to release another update to the operating system with additional features before the end of the year, company executives said.

Although partners said they're enthusiastic about the features of the latest OS, they are also unclear about when new devices will be available. Executives at Palm Solutions Group, the Palm hardware subsidiary that was also spun off earlier this year, said they expect an ARM device based on OS 5 to ship this fall.

"I don't know when devices will come, but [Palm should be rushing to get [them out as quickly as possible," said Anthony Meadow, president of Bear River Associates, a mobile solution provider in Oakland, Calif. "It's really hard to move a lot of data around quickly on current devices."

Solution providers said Palm's current 16-bit OS and slower processor are unable to handle large data queries.

Kirk Wolfe, president of Enterprise Mobility, a Florence, Ky.-based mobile solution provider, said Palm's new hardware and software opens the door for more robust data queries and multitasking. But he also said the company's current products handle most needs.

"We've been able to do everything we need to with Palm handhelds," he said. "It's all in how you write the code."

Still, Palm executives said OS 5 is an important milestone toward meeting the increasing data access demands of the enterprise market.

"Developers have gotten incredibly good at wringing a lot of performance out of slow microprocessors," said PalmSource CEO David Nagel. "But there are certain things you just can't do. This is an enormous shot in the arm for the entire Palm economy."

Palm's announcement comes at a time when the company is struggling to return to profitability.

Palm's earnings seemed on track this year until the company said on May 30 that it would not meet earnings estimates or profitability goals for its fiscal fourth quarter because of weaker-than-expected demand.

Palm Chairman and CEO Eric Benhamou said during the company's year-end conference call in December that Palm should be offering a full complement of wireless services, including Bluetooth, 802.11, Mobitex and GPRS, by fall 2002. CDMA-based wireless capabilities are being evaluated as well, he added.

The planned update to OS 5, which is slated to ship before the end of the year, will feature additional security, multimedia and wireless, said Michael Mace, chief competitive officer at Palm. The company will "do some interesting and innovative stuff" with the always-on capabilities of 2.5G and 3G networks, he said, adding that those networks will support simultaneous voice and data.