Ed Colligan, Palm’s CEO revealed that both wireless carriers and software developers have started testing devices based on its upcoming Nova smartphone OS. Colligan said that both the carriers and software developers have been extremely pleased by the new OS. The company brought some existing software developers on-board with Nova development to ensure third party software support when the Nova platform is launched. Palm will continue using Windows Mobile for enterprise devices and with Nova OS it will focus on consumer friendly devices.“Our first next generation phone is set for launch in the first half of the calendar year 2009 as planned,” Colligan said. “It’s early in this space (smartphone market), and there’s an enormous amount of opportunity left.”
Palm also received additional $100 million funding from Elevation Partners. Palm will issue Series c preferred stock that Elevation Partners can convert into regular Palm shares later. Palm said “ The additional funds will help maintain financial stability during the current world economic crisis and will allow the company to roll out with full force their planned 2009 products.”
Palm is betting heavily on its upcoming Nova OS and new products for 2009, which they will launch at CES 2009 in January. Whatever Palm may say about early stages in smartphone market, the truth is this is their last chance to get back in the smartphone game. From the look of it and the confidence their investors are showing in the company we think they might have a winner in Nova OS. We will find out more at CES.
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