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There's been much consternation in the mobile community about Palm, Inc.'s unwillingness to come out in support of PalmSource's Access Linux Platform (ALP), the developer's future operating system (OS) for smartphones. Many reasons have been bandied about, including Palm's possible plans to create a Linux-based mobile device platform of its own.

Veteran handheld developer and blogger David Beers has concluded that's exactly what Palm is up to. He based this conclusion - in part - on previous leaks about Palm pursuing partnerships to create a version of Linux for its devices, the company's hiring of a slew of Linux engineers when it failed to re-acquire PalmSource - Japan's ACCESS Co. bought the company - and a recent job posting from Palm that even mentions a "new software platform."

Beers says he recently asked an analyst in the know - via e-mail - about his conclusion that Palm is, indeed, writing its own Linux OS.

Here's the answer he received:

We know about it. Palm has stated on several occasions than 80 percent of their engineers are software engineers, they are perfectly able to design their own operating system and are working on it. I know they had a prototype of a Linux Treo 650. From my discussions with management my impression is that Palm is hedging their OS risk by developing in-house systems as well as keeping relationships with Palmsource and Microsoft. I know that future Palm models will be coming out with both operating sytems in order to test market reaction.

The analyst added Palm's new Treos for this year (at least three are expected) would use a mix of Garnet - the current version of the Palm OS - and Windows Mobile. You won't see Palm, Inc. Linux devices until 2007, however.

Smartphones based on PalmSource ALP aren't due until 2007, most likely later in the year, or possibly even early 2008. This may be too long for Palm to wait, if it wants to provide certain features—such as 3G UMTS support on 3GSM networks with Treos other than those based on Windows Mobile before then—for example.

So we may now have two companies, Palm and PalmSource, developing Linux-based follow ups to the Palm OS. And, as Beers explains, Palm bought exclusive rights to the Palm brand back from PalmSource last year - when it then preceded to change its name back to Palm from palmOne - so it is the only one of the two that can name its platform the Palm OS; something PalmSource is disinclined to do anyway.