There's no denying that PalmSource, which handles the Palm operating system, has been hurting lately.
Eventually Palm was forced to spin off its software business into a company called PalmSource.
Bradley runs Palm's handheld division, now in the process of being split from its sister software business, PalmSource.
PalmSource itself says that the new OS won't be ready until around then.
ENGADGET: Palm planning to offer both Windows and Linux handhelds and smartphones?
After that, palmOne bought the Palm trademark from PalmSource, and then changed its company name back to Palm Inc.
Or maybe PalmSource has a completely different way of ranking the "top five global handset providers" and it's another company entirely.
Then Palm Inc. created PalmSource as a subsidiary, focused on the Palm OS, before spinning it off as a public company.
"It's likely that since PalmSource was just taken out, one place the Palm OS would go would be low-end phones and PDAs, " says Kalla.
Eventually Palm was forced to spin off its software business into a company called PalmSource (nasdaq: PSRC - news - people ).
"If it's on your screen, then people in your network can see it, " says Patrick McVeigh, chairman of Reality Mobile and former chief executive at Palmsource.
PalmSource also hopes to expand its business worldwide by using CMS technology to develop a new version of its Palm operating system that will run on Linux-based phone sets.
Set to hit stores by the end of this month, it's the latest to include Palm OS 5 from Palmsource , the software subsidiary of Palm (nasdaq: PALM - news - people ).
PalmSource was acquired by Access Systems, and renamed itself ACCESS. Private equity firm Elevation Partners bought a stake in Palm Inc (they also own a share of Forbes Media) and then eventually Palm was sold in its entirety to Hewlett-Packard.
But Access' interest might not even have been the Palm OS. By acquiring PalmSource, the company gained Linux development resources for mobile devices in the U.S., France and China, including those from PalmSource's recent acquisition of China MobileSoft, a Linux software firm.
Curiouser still, these new phones will reportedly run on Wind River Linux rather than the new Linux-based version of the Palm OS that PalmSource is working on (probably because the new Palm OS won't be ready until next year at the earliest).
ENGADGET: Palm working on a line of Linux-powered, non-Treo feature phones?
For now, PalmSource will develop the Linux-based OS in concert with its existing operating system, offering it as "another flavor" of the Palm OS. There are no plans to stop development of PalmSource's latest "Cobalt" OS 6, though Limp concedes it could be eliminated at some point in the future.
Bradley's group, Palm Solutions, accounts for most of Palm's revenue but manages only 29 cents in gross profit on the sales dollar. (The software group, PalmSource, gets 91 cents on the dollar.) PalmSource gleefully licenses its fabled operating system to the likes of Sony and Kyocera, which then use it as a blunt object to beat Bradley's hardware group into the ground.
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