Mentat has licensed its TCP/IP stack and Streams infrastructure to PalmSource, the keeper and manager of the Palm operating system and platform. Both Mentat TCP and Mentat Portable Streams (MPS) have been integrated into Palm OS Cobalt, the next edition of the Palm platform, and will be available as standard components of the OS.

Mentat TCP is standards-based implementation of TCP/IP, the protocols used for communications over the Internet and other computer networks. It inlcludes IPv6 and IP Security (IPsec). Also, MPS is Mentat's implementation of STREAMS, an extensible networking infrastructure providing a standardized interface for protocols and drivers to the operating system. STREAMS allows developers to port networking protocols and drivers to Palm OS Cobalt.

Cobalt represents Palm OS 6, with more than 80 percent new code, an operating system designed to support multimedia, telephony and a greater variety of PDA and smartphone form factors. It has hardware memory protection and the ability to use up to 256 megabytes of RAM. PalmSource said Cobalt was designed to exploit all flavors of networking and to allow multiple sessions with different networks, from Wi-Fi to mesh networks to metro Wi-FI and Wi-Max, plus the 2.5 and 3G wide area networks.

According to PalmSource, its deal with Mentat enhances theses goals. "As connected mobile devices have become more prevalent on enterprise networks, users are constantly looking at maintaining real-time access to data," said Charlie Tritschler, a VP at PalmSource. "Mentat's networking infrastructure solutions enhance the functionality of the Palm OS and complements PalmSource's efforts to provide state-of-the-art wireless connectivity to a new generation of Palm Powered smart mobile devices."

The new version of the Palm OS also improves compatibility with Microsoft Office and Outlook, with past versions of Palm OS, and with other enterprise software. It supports multitasking and multithreading, larger screens and includes extensible communication and multimedia. However, there are no plans to support synching to the Macintosh desktop. Though a third-party vendor, Mark/Space , plans to offer this feature right away. Expect to see Cobalt-based devices no earlier than this summer.