Access completes PalmSource acquisition

Access, a Japanese provider of mobile content delivery and internet access software, has completed its acquisition of PalmSource, the developer of the Palm OS mobile operating system.

PalmSource will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Access and will no longer be a separate publicly traded company.

The move is unlikely to interfere with PalmSource's previously announced plans to deliver Palm OS for Linux in the first half of 2006.

Hardware maker Palm is currently the main customer for Palmsource's software. The sale to Access combined with Palm's planned introduction of a Palm Treo smartphone running Windows Mobile has created doubts about the companys' plans for future collaboration.

Ken Wirt, senior vice president of marketing at Palm tried to take away some of those doubts: "We are very optimistic about Linux. It will give us much broader access to chipsets, different processors and radios, because every vendor that puts out a chipset writes Linux drivers for it."

As a result of the acquisition, each outstanding share of PalmSource common stock has been converted automatically into the right to receive $18.50 in cash.

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