Symbol Abandons Palm OS for Windows
13th Nov 2006, 18:00 GMT
Symbol is discontinuing its Palm OS based handheld computers and will abandon the operating system entirely in favor of Windows. The company currently sells two Palm OS-based handhelds. The Symbol SPT 1550 and 1800, which are commonly used for industrial applications such as bar code scanners and to monitor supply chains. The devices, however, had to be upgraded so they would comply with the European RoHS Directive that became effective on July 1, Symbol's vice president for mobile products Chuck Dourlet said. The regulation limits the amount of hazardous material such as lead, mercury and cadmium that can be used in electronic devices. Symbol, however, was unable to upgrade several of the SPT 1550's and SPT 1800's components, prompting the company to take them "end of life," said Dourlet. Palm earlier this year was forced to stop selling its Treo 650 smart phone because of the directive. The company furthermore has decided not to make any Palm OS devices in the near future. Palm OS maker PalmSource last year was acquired by Access of Japan. The company is currently replacing the operating system with a Linux version. Although the forthcoming operating system will support existing Palm applications through a software emulator, developers will have to rewrite their software to run on the new platform. "It isn't clear what the path would be going forward," said Dourlet. "To run your Palm based products, you'd have to do application rewrites and make changes to your operating system. There is no seamless transition going forward on Palm [OS]." The device maker instead is focusing on devices running Windows Mobile and Windows CE. Resellers that develop custom applications for the Symbol handheld PCs were informed of the changes last summer to allow them to port over their Palm OS applications to the Windows platform. Symbol in September was acquired by Motorola. The transaction has...
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