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Back at 3GSM in February, PalmSource (now officially ACCESS Systems) introduced the ACCESS Linux Platform (ALP), a new Linux-based mobile operating system (OS) for smartphones that's intended to be the follow up to the Palm OS. The company said at the time it would get full version of the platform to licensees by the close of 2006.

According to ACCESS, it won't make that deadline, after all. Instead, manufacturers will have to wait by as much as an additional half year before they get ALP in their hands. As a result, it is now pretty unlikely ALP-based devices will make it into end-user's hands by the end of next year.

ACCESS quietly placed notice of the delay into a FAQ on its Web site last week. The developer plans to reveal ALP's final name when the OS ships as well. The FAQ says:

We will announce the official name of the ACCESS Linux Platform when we announce that it is available to our licensees and developers—expected sometime in the first half of 2007.

Last week, Palm inked a $44 million deal with ACCESS for a perpetual license to Palm OS Garnet, which it still uses in some of its Treo smartphones - the rest leverage Microsoft’s Windows Mobile platform - and all of its PDAs. Through the agreement, Palm can now alter and improve on the Palm OS as much as it likes moving forward.

Palm intends to use Garnet on future smartphone and handheld models, guaranteeing it can continue to use the Palm OS to differentiate its products from competitors, especially since ACCESS’s delivery of the ALP has been delayed.

Then again, Palm has never committed to using ALP in any of its products. And there have been consistent rumors that the company is developing a Linux-based multi-tasking OS of its own. So, perhaps, Palm will leverage its perpetual Garnet license to enable users to continue to run the tens of thousands of Palm OS applications currently available on its own new Linux platform?

That's exactly what ACCESS plans to do with ALP's GHost (Garnet on Host) compatibility layer. GHost, a Palm OS emulation engine, is supposed to allow properly written 68K-based Palm OS applications to run on ALP-based mobile phones and devices.

Many view the ability for the majority of over 25,000 Palm OS applications to run in ALP as key to the platform's success. The same would no doubt hold true if Palm developed a new mobile platform of its own as well.

Just before LinuxWorld in August, ACCESS and Orange announced they were working together to develop an Orange Application Package for ALP-based mobile phones. This package, which would run on top of ALP, should enable device vendors to quickly develop ALP-based Orange Signature Devices. That is when they finally receive the source code.

In the meantime, startup and competitor to ACCESS, a la Mobile, announced several weeks back that it has scored the first customer for its Convergent Linux Platform. GUPP Technologies, a subsidiary of 3P International, has selected a la Mobile's OS to be the software engine that drives an upcoming dual-mode VoWiFi/GSM smartphone. This device is slated to be offered under the brand name GUPP.

The companies said the GUPP smartphone will feature a QWERTY keyboard. With it, users will be able to make SIP-based (Session Initiation Protocol) VoIP calls, browse the Internet, download music, as well as send and retrieving e-mails from any Wi-Fi hotspot.

a la Mobile said to PDAStreet the GUPP Smartphone supposed to debut at next month’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.