PalmSource, the software licensing business of Palm, Inc., has used the opening of its new headquarters to host a showcase of Palm OS technology. The event was attended by senior PalmSource executives, around twenty exhibiting software partners, press and other members of the Palm Economy.

The winners of the first annual Powered Up awards were announced at the event. Epocrates, operator of a mobile information network for physicians, took the top honours for its healthcare application. There were also awards for Margi’s Powerpoint presentations solution and the Vindigo city guide. A special student developer award was made to An Nguyen for his Clinical Weblog application.

“It gives me great pleasure to welcome so many exceptional members of the PalmSource community to our new headquarters,” said PalmSource president and chief executive officer, David Nagel. “Who could imagine, back in 1996, that today the Palm OS community would have grown to include tens of millions of users worldwide and hundreds of thousands of companies around the globe. This group of innovators has demonstrated true partnership in enabling people to stay connected with their world and to communicate with more ease and effectiveness wherever they are.”

In a separate announcement, PalmSource also said that John B. Shoven, Charles R. Schwab Professor of Economics at Stanford University, would join the PalmSource Board of Directors. Author of numerous papers and books on economics, Shoven will provide financial guidance to the company.

PalmSource has moved from the Santa Clara facility is shared with the Palm Solutions Group.

Insight

Let us hope this ‘open house’ spirit is representative of PalmSource’s long-term approach to its community of third party developers. Palm first started coining the term ‘Palm Economy’ back in 1997. The myriad shareware developers, commercial software companies and hardware vendors it refers to are more important today than ever before.

The 220,000 members of its developer programme are a key asset. Palm recognised this early on, but its support for this community fell away in recent years. Thankfully, following the internal split from the Palm Solutions Group, it seems to be rebuilding vital relationships. PalmSource should never forget that the availability of so many add-on solutions is a one of the key reasons licensees continue to create Palm OS devices and consumers continue to buy them.