PalmSource, now known as ACCESS Systems Americas, Inc., is a subsidiary of
ACCESS, founded in April 1979 and incorporated in February 1984 in Tokyo, Japan, by Arakawa Toru and Kamada Tomihisa , is a company providing a variety of software for connected and mobile devices, such as mobile phones, PDAs, video game consoles and set top boxes....
which develops the
Palm OSFor the modern smartphone operating system by Palm, see: webOSPalm OS is an embedded operating system initially developed by Palm, Inc. for personal digital assistants in 1996...
PDAA personal digital assistant is a handheld computer, also known as a palmtop computer. Newer PDAs commonly have color screens and audio capabilities, enabling them to be used as mobile phones , web browsers, or portable media players. Many PDAs can access the Internet, intranets or extranets...
operating systemAn operating system is an interface between hardware and user which is responsible for the management and coordination of activities and the sharing of the resources of the computer that acts as a host for computing applications run on the machine. As a host, one of the purposes of an operating...
. PalmSource was spun off from
Palm Computing, Inc.Palm, Inc. is a smartphone manufacturer headquartered in Sunnyvale, California that is responsible for products such as the Treo, Centro and Pre smartphones. Previous product lines include the Palm Pilot, Palm III, Palm V, Palm VII, Zire and Tungsten. While their older devices run Palm OS Garnet,...
Palm OS runs on 38 million devices that have been sold since 1996 from hardware manufacturers including
Palm, Inc.Palm, Inc. is a smartphone manufacturer headquartered in Sunnyvale, California that is responsible for products such as the Treo, Centro and Pre smartphones. Previous product lines include the Palm Pilot, Palm III, Palm V, Palm VII, Zire and Tungsten. While their older devices run Palm OS Garnet,...
, Samsung,
IBMInternational Business Machines Corporation, abbreviated IBM, is a multinational computer technology and IT consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, Town of North Castle, New York, United States. The company is one of the few information technology companies with a continuous history dating...
, Aceeca,
AlphaSmartThe AlphaSmart is a brand of portable, battery powered, word-processing keyboards manufactured by NEO Direct, Inc. , currently owned by Renaissance Learning, Inc.-Background:...
,
Fossil, Inc.Fossil, Inc. is a designer and manufacturer of clothing and accessories, primarily watches and jewelry, but also sunglasses and wallets, based in Richardson, Texas, United States. Their brands include Fossil, Relic, Abacus, Burberry, Emprio Armani, Michele Watch and Zodiac Watch.-Company...
,
GarminGarmin Ltd. , incorporated in George Town, Cayman Islands, is the parent company of a group of companies founded in 1989 by Gary Burrell and Min Kao , that develops consumer, aviation, and marine technologies for the Global Positioning System...
,
Group Sense PDAGroup Sense PDA Limited is a Chinese manufacturer of personal digital assistants and smartphones. GSPDA is owned by Group Sense and is based in Hong Kong. One of its product lines is the Xplore series of personal digital assistants....
(Xplore),
Kyocerais a multinational manufacturer based in Kyoto, Japan. It was founded as in 1959 by Kazuo Inamori and renamed in 1982. The company has diversified its founding technology in ceramic materials through internal development as well as strategic mergers and acquisitions...
, PiTech,
Sonyis a multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan, and one of the world's largest media conglomerates with revenue exceeding ¥ 7.730.0 trillion, or $78.88 billion U.S. . Sony is one of the leading manufacturers of electronics, video, communications, video game...
, and
SymbolSymbol Technologies is a manufacturer and worldwide supplier of mobile data capture and delivery equipment. The company specializes in barcode scanners, mobile computers, RFID systems and Wireless LAN infrastructure. Symbol Technologies is a wholly owned subsidiary of Motorola, and headquartered in...
. PalmSource also develops several programs for the Palm OS, and as of December 2005, PalmGear claims to offer 28,769 software titles of varying genres. Palm OS software programs can also be downloaded from
CNETCNET Networks, Inc. was a media company based in San Francisco, California, United States. The company was co-founded in 1993 by Halsey Minor and Shelby Bonnie. It was acquired by CBS Corporation in 2008 and its properties were merged into CBS Interactive...
, PalmSource,
HandangoHandango is an online store that sells mobile software. Handango offers worldwide distribution, support, and e-commerce services to its partners. Company's customers include consumers, software developers, mobile operators, and original equipment manufacturers...
, and
TucowsTucows was formed in Flint, Michigan, USA in 1993. It incorporated in Pennsylvania and headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada...
.
PalmSource also owns
BeOSBeOS was an operating system for personal computers which began development by Be Inc. in 1991. It was first written to run on BeBox hardware. BeOS was optimized for digital media work and was written to take advantage of modern hardware facilities such as symmetric multiprocessing by utilizing...
, which it purchased from
Be Inc.Be Incorporated was an American computer company founded in 1990, best known for the Be Operating System and BeBox personal computer. Be was founded by former Apple Computer executive Jean-Louis Gassée with capital from Seymour Cray....
in 2001.
History
In January 2002,
Palm, Inc.Palm, Inc. is a smartphone manufacturer headquartered in Sunnyvale, California that is responsible for products such as the Treo, Centro and Pre smartphones. Previous product lines include the Palm Pilot, Palm III, Palm V, Palm VII, Zire and Tungsten. While their older devices run Palm OS Garnet,...
set up a wholly owned subsidiary to develop and license
Palm OSFor the modern smartphone operating system by Palm, see: webOSPalm OS is an embedded operating system initially developed by Palm, Inc. for personal digital assistants in 1996...
, which was named PalmSource in February. In October 2003, PalmSource was spun off from Palm as an independent company, and Palm renamed itself palmOne. palmOne and PalmSource set up a holding company that owned the Palm trademark.
In January 2004, PalmSource announced the successor to classic Palm OS called Palm OS Cobalt. However, it failed to gain support from hardware licensees. That December, PalmSource acquired China MobileSoft, a software company with a mobile
LinuxLinux is a generic term referring to Unix-like computer operating systems based on the Linux kernel. Their development is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software collaboration; typically all the underlying source code can be used, freely modified, and redistributed,...
offering. As a result, PalmSource announced that they would extend Palm OS to run on top of the
LinuxLinux is a generic term referring to Unix-like computer operating systems based on the Linux kernel. Their development is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software collaboration; typically all the underlying source code can be used, freely modified, and redistributed,...
architecture.
In May 2005, palmOne purchased PalmSource's share of the Palm trademark and two months later renamed itself Palm, Inc. As part of the agreement, palmOne granted certain rights to Palm trademarks to PalmSource and licensees for a four-year transition period. Later that year,
ACCESS, founded in April 1979 and incorporated in February 1984 in Tokyo, Japan, by Arakawa Toru and Kamada Tomihisa , is a company providing a variety of software for connected and mobile devices, such as mobile phones, PDAs, video game consoles and set top boxes....
, which specializes in mobile and embedded web browser technologies, including
NetFrontNetFront is a microbrowser for embedded devices developed by Access Co. Ltd. of Japan, and was designed to function as an embedded browser.Mainly deployed on mobile phones, NetFront is available for multiple platforms and has been deployed in Multifunction Printers , digital TVs, set-top boxes ,...
, acquired PalmSource for
US$The United States dollar is the unit of currency of the United States. The U.S. dollar is normally abbreviated as the dollar sign, $, or as USD or US$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies and from others that use the $ symbol. It is divided into 100 cents .The U.S...
324 million. In October 2006, PalmSource announced that it would rename itself to ACCESS, to match its parent company's name.