The details of new operating system (that would replace Palm OS 5), which the company has promised since October 2007, are still sketchy, but let’s try highlighting some relevant information on it.

According to Palm Chief Executive Officer Jon Rubinstein:

the goal is to create products that bridge the gap between Research In Motion’s (RIMM) BlackBerry devices, oriented to work and e-mail, and Apple’s iPhone, oriented to fun.

The company has lost share and its stock price has plummeted 80% since Rubinstein joined, Businessweek reported.

It’s interesting that Mr. Rubinstein was just mentioned BlackBerry and iPhone that need to be bridged, but the touch-screen pioneer company didn’t talk about Nokia and Android, which have similar market with this niche. Both Nokia and Android smart-phones were also strong in both productivity and entertainment.

Moreover, Palm wants

the platform would be capable of acting as an OS for not only smartphones, but gameboy like consoles and e-book readers.

I was personally not sure whether we really do need to bridge the gap between a Blackberry and an iPhone, or even between Symbian-based Nokia and Android smart-phones. Each product and brand has own market and fans.

Frankly speaking, it’s not easy to put the incoming Palm device on the smart-phone market map today, since there are many other fierce competitors out there: Samsung, HTC, Sony Ericsson, just name it…

However, Palm believes they can grab 2% of the market. Above all, let’s wait until they unveiled their next-gen OS and device at CES 2009.

The clue is quite clear: The company just sent out an invitation to journalists. The invitation reads, “Come to CES to see all the Palm New-ness you’ve been waiting for.”

It’s exciting to know what kind of the new operating system (that would replace Palm OS 5), which the company has promised since October 2007.

[via Yahoo! Tech]

The reason? “The smartphone landscape has changed so much since Palm forged its software plans, it may be time for a drastic change of strategy,” he wrote. “Unless you’re Google, these look like rough times to launch a mobile operating system.”

Android is free, Fortt added, so Palm could sell lower-cost phones loaded with the software without paying Google. So Palm can focus on developing its cool applications and devices.

I think free OS like Android is really good for business. So it goes for Palm, too.

In addition, the company announced that StyleTap personnel will be at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, CA from June 9-13, 2008, and will be available to meet with mobile application developers interested in learning more about StyleTap CrossPlatform for the Apple devices.