Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : 3Com Corporation (COMS) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mang Cheng who wrote (35520)	10/15/1999 12:26:00 AM
From: Mehrdad Arya	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 45548

Wired News: Palm Speaks Out on Nokia Deal Palm Speaks Out on Nokia Deal by Leander Kahney 3:00 a.m. 14.Oct.99.PDT Mark Bercow, Palm's vice president of strategic alliances and platform development, set up Wednesday's big deal with Nokia to put the Palm OS on mobile phones. At the same time, Symbian -- a joint venture between cell phone giants Nokia, Motorola, Ericsson, and Palm's European arch nemesis, Psion -- put out a press release claiming it also was talking to Palm, a move that apparently irked Bercow. Wired News: Do you want to give a quick summary of the news? Bercow: So, today we announced jointly with Nokia a broad cross-licensing agreement. The headlines would be that Nokia has licensed the Palm OS. And second, that we would co-develop with Nokia an advanced version of Palm OS that will create a category of what we call pen-based smart phones. Essentially, integrated cell phone and Palm devices that will be owned by Palm and also licensed to others WN: Don't you already have that with Qualcomm? Bercow: We do. We have the existing relationship with Qualcomm, with the Palm OS and the smart phone, and we're going to do the same sort of thing with Nokia. WN: Which are, of course, the market leaders. Bercow: Which are the worldwide leaders. Yes, that's right. WN: And what about the Symbian relationship? That's a bit strange. An agreement to discuss ...? Bercow: Yeah. We've agreed -- mostly because we've been asked to by our licensing partner -- that we should sit down and talk about the possibility of maybe working together sometime in the future, which we said we would do. WN: So Nokia asked you to do that? Bercow: Yes. They're partners with both of us and they suggested it might be beneficial if we both talk. WN: Why did they suggest that? Bercow: Because it feels good. WN: But why? Symbian used to be the software arm of Psion, which is Palm's major competitor in Europe. Bercow: Right. First of all, this agreement between us and Nokia today involves no third parties. We have been actually somewhat fazed at how effective Symbian has been at getting their nose in the middle of our announcement with Nokia, and we sort of wonder why that is happening, but this agreement is between us and Nokia. WN: Right. But maybe people are interested in the Symbian thing because it's a little harder to understand. Bercow: Well, that's ... yeah, from that standpoint. I think we're characterizing it as a feel-good announcement. It makes sense for us to see if there are ways for us to see where we might be able to work together and we'll sit down and try to figure that out. WN: Reuters was saying the idea is to put the Palm OS interface on top of the nice, sleek Epoc OS. Bercow: It is true that in this joint development work with Nokia that we will use the Epoc kernel. But that's the extent of it. It's the kernel. The same way that ... you see the Palm OS is architected so that it can support different kernels.... So the joint development work we're going to do with Nokia will use the Epoc kernel. We'll use other kernels for other types of devices in these other kinds of deals. WN: OK. And is this how -- presumably -- the relationship with Symbian would fit together?