Press Release

PalmSource Releases Palm OS Developer Suite 1.0

New Toolchain for Creating ARM-native Palm OS Applications

MUNICH, Germany, PalmSource™ Euro DevCon, September 28, 2004 — PalmSource, Inc., (NASDAQ: PSRC) provider of Palm OS®, a leading operating system powering next generation mobile devices and smartphones, today announced the release of Palm OS Developer Suite 1.0, designed to enable the development of next generation multimedia and wireless applications for ARM- and 68K-based Palm Powered™ devices.

Palm OS Developer Suite 1.0, available free of charge to all PalmSource registered developers, will be distributed to all attendees at the PalmSource Euro DevCon, where developers can benefit from in-depth technical sessions on the new toolchain. Registered Palm OS developers can also download Palm OS Developer Suite 1.0 free of charge from the Developer Zone on palmsource.com. For more information on the Euro DevCon 2004 visit www.palmsource.com/eurodevcon.

The new Palm OS Developer Suite 1.0 includes an open-source Integrated Development Environment (IDE) based on Eclipse, originally developed by IBM. Eclipse is a commercial-quality, best-in-class IDE with several hundred plug-in tools that support major software languages including C, C++, Java, and COBOL. The introduction of Palm OS Developer Suite enables developers to create mobile applications that run natively on ARM-based smartphones and mobile devices running Palm OS Cobalt.

"Palm OS Developer Suite 1.0 integrates all the various tools for project building, editing, compiling and debugging, making it easier to develop ARM-native applications for Palm OS," said Tim Norman, co-founder of NormSoft, a leading Palm OS developer and creator of Pocket Tunes. "PalmSource has done a superb job documenting the changes since Palm OS 5 and have developed a great introduction to using the Palm OS Developer Suite and associated tools."

Developers have traditionally used Metrowerks CodeWarrior™ or command line tools to develop applications for Palm OS Garnet or previous versions of Palm OS. PalmSource has since developed and incorporated the Palm Application Compatibility Environment (PACE) into Palm OS Cobalt, designed to allow most existing 68K applications to be forward compatible and "just work" on Palm Powered devices running Palm OS Cobalt.

Although 68K applications have the advantage of running on a wide variety of Palm Powered devices, only Palm OS Protein applications-ARM-native applications written using the new Palm OS Protein APIs-can take advantage of the many new features introduced in Palm OS Cobalt. Palm OS Developer Suite is currently the only free toolchain available for the development of ARM-native, Palm OS Protein applications.

"Palm OS Developer Suite represents PalmSource's commitment to the 300,000-plus registered developers to provide best-in-class tools to create next-generation wireless applications for ARM-based Palm Powered smartphones and wireless mobile devices," said Larry Berkin, director of developer marketing at PalmSource. "We believe that the suite simplifies the development process and allows for the creation of native applications that leverage the more than 100 new APIs in the new Palm OS Cobalt SDK."

Key features of Palm OS Developer Suite 1.0 include:

  • Support for development of Palm OS Protein applications (x86 and ARM), 68K applications, and PACE Native Objects
  • Based on the open-source Eclipse IDE, version 2.1.2 and Eclipse C/C++ Developer Tools, version 1.2.1
  • Managed Make support eliminates need to manually edit makefiles
  • Integrated debugging support for Palm OS Simulators, Palm OS Emulator, and most devices with serial or USB connectivity
  • Standalone Palm OS Resource Editor with support for XRD resource format
  • Integrated build environment and command-line build tools bundled SDKs and simulators for Palm OS Garnet (5.4 and earlier) and Palm OS Cobalt (6.0.1)

For more information on Palm OS Developer Suite 1.0, visit the PalmSource Web site at www.palmsource.com.

About PalmSource
PalmSource, Inc. is the company behind Palm OS, a leading operating system powering mobile information devices. Approximately 35 million Palm Powered handhelds and smartphones have been sold to date worldwide. Industry leaders Aceeca, AlphaSmart, Fossil, Garmin, GSL, Kyocera, Lenovo, palmOne, QTech, Samsung, Sony, Symbol Technologies and Tapwave license Palm OS to create diverse mobile devices that meet unique customer needs. Palm OS has given rise to a large community of users, enterprises, developers and manufacturers, who together make up the Palm Powered Economy. More information about PalmSource is available at www.palmsource.com, www.palmsource.co.uk, www.palmsource.fr, www.palmsource.de and www.palmsource.com.cn.

Copyright ﾂｩ 2004, PalmSource, Inc. PalmSource, Palm Powered and Palm OS are trademarks or registered trademarks of PalmSource, Inc. or its affiliate in the United States, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and other countries. All other brands, product names, company names, trademarks and service marks are the properties of their respective owners. All rights reserved.

Safe Harbor Statement
CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS: This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, as well as assumptions if they never materialize or prove incorrect, could cause our results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements include, without limitation, statements regarding the features, functions and benefits of Palm OS Developer Suite 1.0 and the development of next generation multimedia and wireless applications. The risks and uncertainties that could cause our results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements include, without limitation the ability of Palm OS Developer Suite 1.0 to provide the anticipated benefits including, without limitation, the integration of the tools required by developers to easily build, edit, compile, and debug ARM-native applications for Palm OS; the ability of PACE to allow existing 68K application to be forward compatible; the ability to enable Palm OS developers to create best-in-class next generation wireless applications for ARM-based Palm Powered smartphones; the ability of PalmSource to grow and maintain its developer community and to compete with existing and new competitors; the continued growth of the smartphone and wireless markets and the penetration of these markets by PalmSource and its licensees; and other risks and uncertainties contained in our public announcements, reports to stockholders and other documents filed with and furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the period ended May 28, 2004. All forward-looking statements in this press release are based on information available to us as of the date hereof, and we assume no obligation to update these forward-looking statements.

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