From ACCESS to Excess

The first shoe dropped in September 2005, when ACCESS Co. Ltd. of Japan announced that it would acquire PalmOS developer PalmSource for $324 million. The next shoe dropped in February 2006, when PalmSource detailed the ACCESS Linux Platform (ALP), as an environment open to running PalmOS binaries and Java applications, in addition to native Linux apps. Enough other shoes have dropped since then to give the clear message that ALP has legs. The latest was at LinuxWorld Expo in August, when the company showed screenshots of an iPhone-like UI and provided more details around its plan to make Linux the most supportive environment for mobile device and application development. Chief among these is the Hiker Application framework which fills in some of the formerly missing APIs for mobile applications. Hiker was originally available through the MPL (Mozilla Public License), but reportedly will be dual-licensed with the LGPL(v2) license as well.

Looking beyond the superficial resemblances between what ACCESS showed and the now-familiar iPhone, it's clear that the mobile application market will divide between Web-based (iPhone) and native OS-based (ACCESS, OpenMoko, maemo) -- with the latter embracing legacy apps developed for other platforms as well. Thus the pavement gets wider on the road to truly open mobile devices and markets that grow on them.

- Doc