Palm developing its own Linux operating system, not the ALP

I was following the Palm Analyst & Investor Day coverage on PalmAddicts and found one slide during Ed Colligan's keynote that was quite interesting. Mr. Colligan stated that Palm is planning to roll out new OS before the end of the year based on Linux Platform (Techmeme discussion). We have known for some time that PalmSource was purchased by ACCESS and the new Linux operating system was called the ACCESS Linux Platform (ALP), but it seems that Palm (remember Palm is just the hardware company now) has been quietly developing their own new Linux operating system. This new Palm Linux OS will apparently use Opera as a browser and ChatterMail (they hired the developer a few months ago) as the email client and will only be developed for Palm hardware. It looks like we will never see an ALP device from Palm now.

Palm will continue to use the Garnet (Palm OS 5 ) on some devices, but I imagine once they roll out their Linux OS then Garnet will finally be put to rest after several successful years of being on the market. Future Palm devices will run both their new Linux OS and Windows Mobile. With two solid applications already talked about as being a part of the new Linux OS, I think Palm has a good base to work with and look forward to checking out a device later this year or in early 2008. Hopefully, we'll see a bit slimmer Treo device running this OS since the Treo is quite chunky in comparison to the latest and greatest devices.

You can check out the webcast for yourself too if you go through the registration process.