PalmSource continues its recent trend of making nice with the open source community through acceptance into the Consumer Electronics Linux Forum (CELF).

CELF is an open standards-based consortium that encourage the adoption of Linux for the development of consumer electronics devices. In addition to the Palm platform provider there are 49 other CELF members, including founders Matsushita, Sony, Hitachi, NEC, Royal Philips Electronics, Samsung Electronics, Sharp, and Toshiba.

Members plan to clarify and codify requirements to be addressed in open source software through an open process. Thereafter, the organization says it will evaluate any open source submissions as to their effectiveness and responsiveness to these requirements.

PalmSource lead scientist John Ostrem declares, "We are pleased to join the Consumer Electronics Linux Forum and collaborate with other industry-leading companies and the open source community to advance the development of Linux-based products.

Membership in the CELF group isn’t PalmSource’s only move towards a more interoperable and flexible platform. In December 2004 the company announced plans to buy China Mobile Soft Limited, upping its profile in the most populous country in the world, and expanding its mobile handset offerings beyond the Palm OS.

CMS offers a Linux-based phone platform, plus other applications for mobile handsets and smartphones, that PalmSource said it would use to create a Linux version of the Palm platform. This Linux-based Palm platform should feature the traditional Palm look-and-feel, including an interface and software framework similar to Palm OS Garnet and Palm OS Cobalt, which will continue to be supported.

Not only will the new Linux OS and software feature the Palm look-and-feel, it’ll also be data compatible. So, in theory, the traditional Palm operating systems and the Linux Palm platform should be capable of running the same applications.

Ostrem says, "With PalmSource's recent acquisition of China MobileSoft and the Company's Linux expertise, we believe PalmSource is poised to make significant contributions to the CELF as it develops Linux- based phone software products."

In related news, PalmSource recently joined the Open Mobile Terminal Platform (OMTP) group. OMTP's mandate is to create a consistent user experience across mobile devices to provide a more reliable and enhanced user experience. The group aims to achieve this by delineating platform requirements for standardized platform interfaces.

State of Palm Platform
As of December, the Palm OS continued its steady decline in terms of market share in the embedded OS market of late. According to a pair of recent studies, the embedded crown now rests with Microsoft.

Gartner Research reported that Microsoft beat Palm in third-quarter 2004 PDA OS shipments, marking the first time that Microsoft has beaten the perennial PDA OS leader in the category that Palm helped to create. Palm OS shipments declined by 28 percent, and its market share fell from 46.9 percent in the third quarter of 2003 to 29.8 in in the third quarter of this year. Windows CE recorded 32.6 percent growth and saw its share hit 48.1 percent up from 41.2 percent last year.