Feature-Rich Pal OS Update Likely To Ship Ahead Of Schedule
Palm OS 5, originally slated for release in the second half, will now be available in the early summer, Nagel said. Pre-beta versions were distributed last week at the PalmSource conference, and official beta versions are expected within the next week, he said.
One key to the new handheld operating system is support for the ARM processor, which Nagel said will be a boon to developers.
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Nagel: New OS is 'an enormous shot in the arm for the entire Palm economy.'
"Developers have gotten incredibly good at wringing a lot of performance out of slow microprocessors," he said. "But there are certain things you just can't do. This is an enormous shot in the arm for the entire Palm economy."
Features of the new OS include multimedia and sound capabilities, enhanced security and additional wireless support, which Nagel said are areas of particular concern among enterprise customers. The OS also will offer the ability to encrypt data within a device; Secure Socket Layer encryption for e-mail, Web browsing and online transactions; and biometric security, which requires a user to speak to the device to turn it on.
The last feature, in particular, acknowledges that PDAs can be lost by users, Nagel said. "We really have got to go the extra mile to make them secure," he said.
Palm executives said most applications already on the market will run on the new OS via an emulator.
C.E. Steuart Dewar, president of Pimlico Software, Morganton, Ga., said the new OS brings Palm up to date. Capabilities such as native support for 320 x 320 screen sizes means the developer doesn't have to write proprietary code to support higher-end devices such as Sony's Clie, he said.
Palm OS 5 also will provide support for more memory, which is necessary as developers push the envelope on applications for mobile devices, he added.
PalmSource has more than 200,000 developers in its program, and the company recently began offering certifications, Nagel said. The increasingly complex nature of mobile devices provides an opportunity for solution providers to set up the systems, he said.