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Two days after Palm released its first device running PalmOS 5, PalmSource has offered us a glimpse of the next milestone for PalmOS, version 6.0 due for release next year.

Hmmm, methinks how this will affect buyers of the Tungsten-T running PalmOS 5, or the upcoming Tungsten-W set to run the superceded 4.1?

Version 6.0 will be as dramatic a change for the platform as OS X was for Apple, or NT was for Microsoft, and represents the culmination of work from the former Be team Palm acquired last year.

The new OS will feature multimedia and graphics frameworks drawn from BeOS, PalmSource's Michael Mace told us. Mace says this is real BeOS code, but Steve Sakoman, the team's former leader at Be Inc, and now PalmSource's "chief products officer" has denied that Be code would be incorporated into the new OS. More likely, we suspect, the new OS will inherit some algorithms and architecture from BeOS.

Version 6.0 will feature granular, application-level security and pluggable I/O interfaces. Which means that licensees can swap out the Graffiti input mechanism for an alternative, such as biometrics. Application developers need not concern themselves with the specifics: apps will simply receive an event. Mace also said PalmSource intended the make the new OS Microsoft .NET compatible, and will likely partner with others to provide a run time for the platform.

View: PalmOS 6 details emerge
News source: The Reg

Asked if Microsoft was concerned that the move will drive those Windows users not on 2000 or XP to consider Linux or StarOffice/OpenOffice, the spokesman said the company is not worried as "customers have told us they want security and reliability, and we are giving them that. We are confident the products continue to offer compelling value and will do so going forward."

This latest move by Microsoft follows a recent outcry over its latest licensing scheme, which many customers refused to adopt, saying it would cost them more.

Some beta testers had asked for Office 11 on the Windows 9x code base, which powers all the Windows releases before 2000, but had not received their beta copies of the software. This prompted Microsoft to announce on the beta newsgroups on Monday night that it was removing support for Windows 9x.

In a posting to the Office beta newsgroups, Sloan Crayton, of Microsoft Office Beta Support, said there are a number of reasons for removing support for Windows 9x. "As a number of you have noted, Windows 98 and 98 SE are getting a bit old now. It also relates heavily to the push to improve security in our products.

"Windows 9x is inherently insecure. It also takes quite a bit of development time to make our products work well on Windows 9x. We determined that it would be more effective to spend that time making our products work better on the more advanced platforms," he said.

Microsoft chose SP3 on Windows 2000 because that service pack includess Windows Installer 2.0, which shipped in Windows XP. "Installer 2.0 is much better about limiting reboots at install time and when applying patches. It also has features that allow us to minimize the need for the user to insert the CD.

"Lastly, Installer 2.0 allows us to optimize the patches so that the size of the patch is much smaller. We did that with Office XP SP2 when downloaded from the Products Update page (SP2 is only 6MB when Installer 2.0 is installed versus 15MB for Installer 1.x)," he said.

While Microsoft realized that the decision "won't be popular among all of our customers, it allows us to create a better and more stable product," Crayton said.