With StyleTap Palm software appears and operates on a Pocket PC just like native Windows Mobile programs. You can even cut and paste between Palm and Windows Mobile applications on the same handheld.

StyleTap has been beta tested by thousands of users before the release of version 1.0. It runs third-party applications written for all editions of the Palm OS, including version 5 applications that use ARMlets. Network applications work through Wi-Fi, serial or USB connections. Infrared and Bluetooth communications are also supported.

Palm platform titles will run just fine on square screen (240 x 240), QVGA (240 x 320) or VGA (640 x 480) pixel resolution Pocket PC displays, in portrait or landscape mode.

While it is great that any Pocket PC user can now run Palm OS applications, we think the software is a particular boon to mobile device users who have made the switch from a Palm device (such as the Treo 650) to a Pocket PC (such as Palm's own Treo 700wx). Now they won't completely lose their - often hundreds of dollars worth - software investment.

As Style Tap CEO Gregory Sokoloff puts it, "Long-time Palm OS users are thrilled to continue running their favorite Palm OS applications on their new Windows Mobile devices, while existing Windows Mobile users are delighted with the vast library of additional applications that StyleTap Platform makes available to them."


Palm Apps Running on Windows Mobile

While Palm applications will run unmodified with StyleTap, the company is offering developers StyleTap APIs that optimize performance. An upcoming corporate edition will include support for barcode and RFID scanners and other hardware-specific capabilities.

"There's an enormous base of wonderful software written for Palm OS, and it's great to see those products available on a much wider range of hardware," said Michael Mace, author of Mobile Opportunity blog and former Chief Competitive Officer at Palm. "The mobile industry and mobile users desperately need a single consistent platform that would let developers write software once and run it anywhere. Mobile Java was supposed to do that, but it failed miserably. I'm delighted that StyleTap has tackled this problem on Windows Mobile, and I look forward to them extending their product to other operating systems."

The company has plans to extend StyleTap to the Symbian and Windows Mobile for Smartphones operating systems.

StyleTap sells for $49.95, and is free to those who bought a preview version.

Keeping Palm Apps Alive in ALP
While ACCESS (formally PalmSource) has all but abandoned the Palm OS for the upcoming ACCESS Linux Platform (ALP), the company is integrating a Palm platform emulation engine (called GHost for Garnet on Host) into its new Linux-based OS for smartphones. ACCESS told PDAStreet this summer it expects that properly written 68K based Palm applications will run on ALP mobile phones and devices.

Many view the ability for the majority of the thousands of Palm applications to run in ALP as key to the platform's success. The emulation layer and a number of new developer initiatives, such as morphing the Palm OS Developer Program and its 420,000 members into the ACCESS Developer Network, are essential part of ACCESS's plans to help ALP gain acceptance among the developer community.

The company says the purpose of the ACCESS Developer Network online resource is to help accelerate development cycles and time-to-market for ALP applications by providing early access to new ALP releases, products and tools to developers.