Handheld OS

Gregory Alan Bolcer (gbolcer@endTECH.com)
Mon, 15 Nov 1999 09:56:56 -0800


The handheld OS war is heating up, and the winner's not going to
be WinCE. The two competitors are RedHat/Cygnus/ECOS[1] and
PalmOS. Both RedHat and Sony had big announcements today. RedHat
to acquire Cygnus for nearly $700M in stock, Sony licensing
PalmOS for handheld in exchange for their memory sticks. [2]

Hard to call, but I'd say PalmOS has the tools and apps for
handhelds locked up for the next 4 years. Cygnus's open source
handheld OS is very elegant, but PalmOS has the tools and platforms.

Greg

[1] http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,32543,00.html
[2] http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,32546,00.html
Sony Takes Palm OS in Hand
by Leander Kahney

8:55 a.m. 15.Nov.1999 PST
In a deal that may put the Palm in the hands of
millions of people's consumer electronic devices,
Sony has licensed the popular handheld operating
system.

In return, Palm Computing will incorporate Sony's
Memory Stick technology into its handhelds, the
companies said at the Comdex trade show in Las
Vegas on Monday.

Read more in The Wireless World
Read more about Gadgets and Gizmos

The alliance has the potential to vastly increase the
number of Palm OS devices, positioning Palm as the
Microsoft of the handheld era.

The Sony announcement comes just weeks after
Nokia said it will use Palm's handheld operating
system to run the next generation of smart cell
phones.

-- 
Greg Bolcer
email: gbolcer@endtech.com
web: http://www.endtech.com
work: 714.505.4970
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