Innovation

SANTA CLARA, Calif., July 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Consistent with its strategy to fuel innovation and broaden the market for Palm Powered(R) devices, Palm, Inc. (Nasdaq: PALM) today announced that key suppliers of ARM(R) core-based technology have joined its new Palm OS(R) Ready Program. Intel Corporation (Nasdaq: INTC) and Motorola (NYSE: MOT) will produce reference designs, and Texas Instruments Incorporated (NYSE: TXN) (TI) will develop a wireless processing platform, optimized to support the Palm OS platform via a development license with Palm. The Palm OS Ready Program is intended to strengthen the Palm OS licensing strategy in the multimedia and wireless device markets as well as assist licensees in bringing innovative ARM core-based devices to market more quickly.

Intel will provide Intel(R) StrongARM and Intel(R) XScale(TM) Palm OS Ready solutions, Motorola will provide DragonBall MX1 Palm OS Ready solutions, and TI will provide OMAP(TM) platform Palm OS Ready solutions. ARM will work closely with Palm to ensure that the Palm OS migrates smoothly to the ARM architecture and that ARM development tools are optimized to support the Palm OS platform.

By licensing components of the Palm OS platform to silicon solution providers, Palm is enabling them to provide more complete processor solutions to licensees of the Palm OS platform. This should save licensees development time, freeing them to focus technical resources on innovative differentiation based on their own areas of expertise. In addition, it is anticipated that new segments of developers will use these extended device capabilities to join the more than 160,000 developers in the Palm Economy. Users of Palm Powered devices should benefit by having more innovative devices from which to choose, and having them available sooner.

"As the worldwide leader in providing the software platform for handheld, mobile and wireless devices, Palm is accelerating the choices and levels of innovation available," said Alan Kessler, vice president and general manager of Palm's Platform Solutions Group. "We are setting a new agenda for our industry that should result in more innovation and quicker development of ARM core-based Palm Powered devices."

"This new program is a good move for Palm because it should both shorten the time to market for device makers and expand the total number of copies of Palm OS in use," said Al Gillen, research manager, system software at International Data Corp. (IDC). "More copies of an operating system in use translates to a bigger market for application vendors."

Palm OS Ready Partners

All Palm OS Ready Program partners are market leaders in the semiconductor space. This caliber of industry luminaries strengthens the entire Palm Economy.

Intel

As a member of the Palm OS Ready Program, Intel will bring years of systems experience to its new collaboration with Palm. Intel will work with Palm to optimize the Palm OS device abstraction layer (DAL) for the Intel StrongARM and Intel XScale-based processors to increase multimedia performance for Palm Powered devices.

"The Palm OS commands a substantial presence in the handheld market segment," said Peter Green, general manager of Intel's Handheld Computing Division. "Intel's high-performing, low-power processors and Intel StrataFlash(R) memory, when coupled with Palm OS, make for a compelling and powerful platform. Palm OS licensees and the broad base of Palm developers will be able to take advantage of the full benefits of Intel StrongARM and Intel XScale technology."

Motorola

As the No. 1 supplier of microprocessors for handheld computers, Motorola will work with Palm to optimize the Palm OS device abstraction layer (DAL) for the Motorola DragonBall MX family to meet the needs of Palm Powered devices.

"Motorola's DragonBall family has been at the forefront of the rapidly growing portable devices market with Palm's products for six years," said Omid Tahernia, vice president and general manager of Motorola's Wireless and Mobile Systems Division.

"Motorola's wireless embedded solutions have been the backbone of the phenomenal success of mobile products over the past decade. But the most compelling part is only beginning to take shape. Our ARM core-based DragonBall MX family leverages our system-on-chip expertise to meet converging needs for wireless and multimedia applications."

Texas Instruments

"The combination of Palm's expertise in handheld solutions and Texas Instruments' clear leadership in wireless technology will offer a strong solution for manufacturers designing next-generation wireless devices," said Jeff McCreary, senior vice president of marketing and sales for Texas Instruments. "By leveraging the Palm OS platform with TI's high-performance, low-power OMAP architecture, OEMs will deliver a better, easier and more fulfilling wireless multimedia experience to consumers worldwide."

As an extension of its strategy to support a wide variety of programming languages, wireless industry standards and platforms, TI expects to offer Palm OS Ready solutions based on the OMAP platform to major Palm licensees. Introduced in May 1999, TI's OMAP architecture is an open platform that delivers the required performance and low power to enable real-time communications-based applications. The OMAP platform has quickly become the de facto standard for 2.5 and 3G wireless devices and is also supported by a broad network of developers who design popular applications, including multimedia, security, m-commerce, gaming and location based services.

ARM

Palm and ARM (Nasdaq: ARMHY; LSE: ARM) are working together to migrate the Palm OS platform to ARM silicon solutions and collaborate on future roadmaps to bring to market technologies that should lead to exciting and innovative handheld and wireless Palm OS solutions.

"ARM has significant expertise in the wireless and handheld device markets due to our industry-leading low-power and high-performance microprocessor cores," said Reynette Au, vice president, corporate marketing, ARM. "We are committed to enable our silicon partners to design innovative ARM core-based wireless solutions that run industry-proven operating systems such as the Palm OS platform."

Silicon Porting Kit

Through licensing of the Silicon Porting Kit, Palm is providing access to certain components of the Palm OS to the Palm OS Ready partners. The kit is designed to ease the transfer of the Palm OS platform to the respective processors, enabling suppliers to quickly satisfy demand from Palm OS platform licensees. The kit will include a device abstraction layer, a hardware abstraction layer, tools, required Palm OS components, technical resources, training, support and access to marketing opportunities.

About Palm, Inc.

Palm, Inc. is a pioneer in the field of mobile and mobile and wireless Internet solutions and a leading provider of handheld computers, according to IDC (December 2000). Based on the Palm OS(R) platform, Palm's handheld solutions allow people to carry and access their most critical information wherever they go. Palm(TM) handhelds address the needs of individuals, enterprises and educational institutions through thousands of application solutions.

The Palm OS platform is also the foundation for products from Palm's licensees and strategic partners, such as Franklin Covey, Handspring, IBM, Kyocera, Sony, Symbol Technologies, and HandEra (formerly TRG). Platform licensees also include Acer, Garmin, Nokia and Samsung. The Palm Economy is a growing global community of industry-leading licensees, world-class OEM customers, and approximately 160,000 innovative developers and solution providers that have registered to develop solutions based on the Palm OS platform. Palm went public on March 2, 2000. Its stock is traded on the Nasdaq national market under the symbol PALM. More information is available at http://www.palm.com.

NOTE: Palm OS is a registered trademark and Palm and Palm Powered are trademarks of Palm, Inc. or its subsidiaries. Other brands may be trademarks of their respective owners.

SOURCE Palm, Inc.
Web site: http: //www.palm.com
CONTACT: Ronni Sarmanian of Palm, Inc., +1-408-878-2547, or ronni.sarmanian@corp.palm.com; or Amy Nemechek of A&R Partners, +1-303-730-5755, or anemechek@arpartners.com, for Palm, Inc.