News

Report: Palm planning buyback of PalmSource

Stock in operating system provider PalmSource has risen 20% in the last three days on rumors that Palm Inc. plans to buy back the struggling software company. Palm and PalmSource originally split in 2003, creating seperate hardware and software companies, though allegations of sweetheart deals between the two have persisted. Shares of PalmSource have been in decline almost continuously for over a year, resulting from the loss of a number of licensees, a lack of profitability, the debacle surrounding the company's Cobalt OS, and continuing loss of marketshare to Windows based devices. PalmSource's stock currently stands at $9.60 a share, up from lows close to $7.50 several days ago.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=PSRC&t=1y

T-Mobile to get HTC Tornado in October

According to Engadget, T-Mobile will be launching a version of the new HTC Tornado Windows Smartphone this October. The Tornado includes Windows Mobile 5.0, quad-band GSM/EDGE voice and data, Bluetooth 1.2, WiFi, 64 MB RAM, 64 MB flash, a 200 MHz processor, MiniSD slot, and 1.3 MP camera.

I've never really gotten into Windows Smartphones, nor converged devices in general, but this is one of those things that you just have to say cool.

Palm Inc lists Linux jobs

It's not a lot to go on, but Palm Inc. has listed on its job site several positions relating to Linux-based development. Among the listings are entries for "Senior Linux Software Engineer, Mobile Handset", smartphone interface developers, and other software engineers. This has been taken by many to imply that Palm is preparing for device development using the Linux-based operating system under development by PalmSource, although PalmSource's own timelines indicate that the full-scale OS won't be ready for at least a year in the best case scenario.

Other speculation centers on the rumored buyout of PalmSource by Palm Inc, and suggests that Palm may be preparing to augment or replace PalmSource coders with their own employees after acquisition.

In any event, it seems unlikely that we'll find out what exactly Palm's intentions were. All listings related to Linux appear to have been pulled from their site as of this writing.

CORRECTION: The job listings have not been pulled from the site, but for some reason they did not show up for me when I originally attempted to verify the story. To repeat, the job openings still appear in Palm Inc.'s listings.

http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_story.asp?ID=8042