Palm Computing and Symbian Plc have confirmed that they are discussing cross-licensing their respective operating systems in a move to dominate the emerging wireless internet market. Initially, Nokia Oyj has signed a licensing deal with Palm to provide smart phones that will combine PalmOS and its applications development platform with EPOC (see separate story).
As previously reported, the deal is likely to see PalmOS running as an application layer on top of the EPOC wireless platform. Or, as International Data Corp analyst, Jill House puts it: EPOC is stripped bare to its kernel to deal with the wireless guts…while Palm runs all the jazzy, snappy stuff on top. However, the two companies are unlikely to tightly integrate the code bases right from the start, according to House. The two operating systems would need to be somewhat compatible, she said, but only on the level of protocol swapping and the like. What the deal does is bring together the real time operating system benefits that EPOC offers with the large number of applications available for the PalmOS and allows the two to co- exist in a mobile phone environment.
The companies are keen not to present this as any more than a technology deal. Talking in Geneva, Switzerland at the Telecom ’99 conference yesterday, Palm’s president Alan Kessler tried to end speculation about any exchange of equity with Symbian Plc now. Asked whether there could be a share deal between the two companies, Kessler said: It was not envisioned in the past, it was not mentioned in the past. Its is not envisioned in the present, was not mentioned in the present and it is not envisioned in the future. Last week 3Com Corp, which owns Palm Computing, postponed an announcement on the unit’s planned IPO, which led to rumors that Palm would take a stake in Symbian. However, Symbian – a consortium consisting of Nokia, Ericsson, Psion, Motorola and Matsushita – said that it wasn’t looking for any more shareholders. House agrees that for the time being the technology deal will remain just that. If this works, I think that these discussions will get a lot tighter, she says, however.
The response from Palm’s major rival in the handheld community, Microsoft Corp, has been near-instantaneous. Microsoft’s mobile OS, Windows CE, has been criticized for taking up too much memory to be used in smaller mobile devices. However, Microsoft told Reuters that it is taking steps to address this issue and that CE offers more advanced features than other small footprint operating systems. However, behind the bluster, Microsoft must be unnerved by this turn of events.
