PalmSource today announced entry into an agreement for the acquisition of China MobileSoft Limited (CMS) in China.

The acquisition of CMS is expected to further extend PalmSource's leadership as a software provider for phones and mobile devices worldwide. The combination of Palm OS and CMS's software products will give PalmSource one of the broadest line of mobile software in the industry, powering mobile phones at all price points in all regions of the world.
 
CMS and its subsidiaries currently offer customers a wide range of software for mobile phones, including more than a dozen phone applications, operating software for smart and feature phones. The company has also been developing a version of Linux optimized for mobile devices. In the future, we plan to give the phone applications and phone software the Palm OS look-and-feel and data compatibility, extending the Palm OS ease-of-use to all classes of mobile phones worldwide.
 
PalmSource will continue to offer both Palm OS Garnet and Palm OS Cobalt to support a broad range of mobile devices including smartphones. PalmSource also plans to implement Palm OS on top of Linux, bringing the benefits of Palm OS to the Linux community. PalmSource intends to work as a partner within the Linux community to help Linux grow rapidly in the consumer and enterprise mobile markets.

About CMS and China
CMS applications are now shipping in over 30 phone models in the largest wireless market in the world. With a major R&D center and a sales and marketing team in China, PalmSource will now have direct access to this fast growing market. PalmSource also gains relationships with many of the OEM and ODMs that are developing innovative phones for domestic use and export to the rest of the world. According to market data, China is one of the fastest growing mobile phone markets in the world:

• China now has more wireless phones installed than wired phones
• China has over 320 million mobile phone users
• Approximately 5.5 million new wireless phone subscribers sign up each month