Palm OS to be renamed
New owners unveil Garnet
By Peter Cohen | Published 16:00, 26 January 07
Access, the company that owns the rights to the Palm operating system (Palm OS), has announced it is renaming Palm OS, "Garnet OS".
The company has made the move to differentiate Garnet OS from Palm, the manufacturer of the Treo handset and holders of the Palm trademark.
The announcement comes in tandem with Access' introduction of a new "Access Powered" mark that will replace "Palm Powered" in devices designed around the operating system.
Last October Access announced that it would subsume PalmSource and change its name to Access. It sold PalmSource's trademark rights back to Palm. As part of that continued effort, Access is renaming Palm OS to Garnet OS instead.
This isn't the first time the name "Garnet" has been associated with Palm OS. In February 2004, PalmSource introduced different names for the Palm operating system - Palm OS 5 became Palm OS Garnet, and Palm OS 6 became Palm OS Cobalt.
Besides Garnet OS, Access' specific focus is in developing a Linux-based platform for mobile phones and other devices. The Access Linux Platform, as the company calls it, will include a compatibility layer for Garnet OS.
