New Palm OS to focus on web, new phone line

Palm chief Ed Colligan today told APC in an interview about some of the first details of the next-generation Palm OS. Internally codenamed Nova, the Linux-based platform will focus on "Internet and Web-based applications" much more than the existing software and is also targeted at a different class of user. Future phones using Nova will be released under a new, unnamed "prosumer" brand that should slot in between the entry-level Centro and business-oriented smartphones such as the Treo line.

That shift will also let Palm more clearly separate its high-end devices into two distinct categories and keep the Centro as a budget model. Some of this distinction is already in place: all future Centros are planned to use only a Palm-made OS versus the split between Palm OS and Windows Mobile for Treos, Colligan says.

The company founder hasn't provided information about the devices themselves, which aren't expected to appear until early 2009, or a few months after early previews of Nova by itself. He does acknowledge that interest remains in the previously canceled Foleo smartphone companion but that any hopes of bringing it back are contingent on revitalizing Palm's phone business first. The company is best as a vertically integrated hardware and software designer like Apple but needs to master this before it can come back, Colligan says.

"I really want there to be one Palm user experience," he explains, "and so we’ll come back around to that idea [of the Foleo] when we’re done delivering that experience." [image via BGR]

Filed under: industry
Other story tags: Windows Mobile, Palm, Treo, Centro, Nova, Foleo