PalmSource adopts Access name

PalmSource will adopt its parent-company's name, nearly a year after being acquired by Access Co.

PalmSource, of Sunnyvale, Calif., was originally the operating system division of Palm, the PDA manufacturer now owned by 3Com. Access, in Tokyo, acquired it in November 2005 to complement its NetFront Web browser for mobile handsets, set-top boxes and gaming consoles.

Now, Access will fully absorb PalmSource, as it continues to sell the Palm OS for mobile handsets against competition like Microsoft's Windows Mobile and Symbian.

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PalmSource will adopt its parent-company's name, nearly a year after being acquired by Access Co.

PalmSource, of Sunnyvale, Calif., was originally the operating system division of Palm, the PDA manufacturer now owned by 3Com. Access, in Tokyo, acquired it in November 2005 to complement its NetFront Web browser for mobile handsets, set-top boxes and gaming consoles.

Now, Access will fully absorb PalmSource, as it continues to sell the Palm OS for mobile handsets against competition like Microsoft's Windows Mobile and Symbian.

It will immediately face a challenge, as PalmSource continues to feud with Palm after missing a deadline to develop a new generation of the OS called the Access Linux Platform.

At the same time, handset manufacturers are hustling to adjust to a changing marketplace. Consumer demand for simple PDAs has been dropping fast, while sales of smart phones continue to rise.

That shift has pushed such hardware vendors as Motorola, Nokia and Research in Motion to grab bigger slices of marketshare while Palm phases out its handheld organizers and relies heavily on sales of its higher-priced Treo smart phone. Palm is expected to launch a lower-cost version of its smart phone called the Treo 680 Thursday as a product to bridge the gap.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.