Palm to pick up wireless software company

Handheld maker Palm said on Wednesday that it plans to buy New York-based ThinAirApps, a privately held company whose software allows secure wireless access to corporate e-mail and other critical business data. Santa Clara, Calif.-based Palm said it will pay $19 million in stock and expects the deal to close by the end of this year.

Palm said ThinAirApps will become part of its "solutions" group, the part of the company that makes and sells Palm-branded handhelds. By year's end, Palm plans to create a separate subsidiary for the unit that develops and licenses the Palm operating system.

Todd Bradley, chief operating officer of Palm's solutions group, said that the acquisition, combined with Palm's earlier purchase of Actual Software, will give the handheld maker both the server-based and handheld-based software needed to provide corporate e-mail on its new wireless devices. --Ian Fried, Special to ZDNet News