Palm OS Liscensed to China's Legend

Posted By: PIC Tuesday, December 10, 2002 9:26:10 AM

PalmSource had announced it will license the Palm OS to China's biggest PC firm, Legend Group. The four-year deal will let Legend fit its handheld computers with a Chinese language version of PalmSource's OS 4.2 operating system.

Company officials said they hoped the Legend contract would help pry open the personal digital assistant, or PDA, market in China, of which PalmSource currently accounts for only three percent.

"The China market is very important, obviously," PalmSource Chief Executive David Nagel told a news conference. Worldwide, China is one of the leading economic powers in terms of growth and diversification, and we see the same growth in consumers themselves."

Legend is also showing off a new device. The unit has a color screen, MP3-playing ability, a dictionary, address book and calendar, the gadget will have a price tag of below 2,000 yuan ($240) when it goes on sale in January in China.

PalmSource's operating system would power more than half of Legend's handheld computers within a year, said Legend Vice-President Lu Yan. Market researcher International Data Corp has forecast China's PDA market will grow 52 percent next year.

If you can read Chinese, more information can be found here.

Article Comments

 (34 comments)

The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. PalmInfocenter is not responsible for them in any way.
Please Login or register here to add your comments.

Comments Closed Comments Closed
This article is no longer accepting new comments.

Down

Yes!

Emma @ 12/10/2002 10:03:55 AM #
Soon there'll be a billion Palms sold....

RE: Yes!
jinwuh @ 12/10/2002 12:40:15 PM #
Not as good as it sounds! The PDA markets shrinks rapidly this year in China.It's already too late!!!

RE: Yes!
ganoe @ 12/11/2002 9:02:56 AM #
> The PDA markets shrinks rapidly this year in China.

So a market growth rate of 52% for next year is bad?


Excellent news for the PalmOS Platform!

macshimidh @ 12/10/2002 10:04:20 AM #
Legend is the leading PDA manufacturer in the PRC.

What no Microsoft...

Spock9 @ 12/10/2002 10:30:31 AM #
I can't believe Microsoft missed this one...on that's right, PPC can't do Chinese, Japanese or any other asian written language.

RE: What no Microsoft...
thinkpanda @ 12/10/2002 11:20:53 AM #
Actually, Legend make PPC too.

RE: What no Microsoft...
Take1 @ 12/10/2002 4:16:19 PM #
If you look at what companies make PPCs, you'll realize that there are several Japanese language Pocket PCs on the market. Chinese language PPCs are numerous as well.

PPCs available to the Japanese and Chinese market:

Toshiba Genio-e
Toshiba Pocket PC e570
NEC Mobile Pro
dopod 686
MiTAC 528
Compaq iPaq Pocket PC H3870/H3835
Compaq iPAQ H3970
Acer n20
Acer n20w
xda
MyPal A600 (Asus)
ViewSonic Pocket PC V35
Eten InfoTouch P600
Fujitsu-Siemens Pocket LOOX
Legend XP100

None of these are English-only.

New Handheld

Admin @ 12/10/2002 11:22:23 AM #
If anyone spots a picture of this new handheld please send me an email!

-Ryan
webmaster@palminfocenter.com
RE: New Handheld
popko @ 12/10/2002 1:01:04 PM #
Actually, the link you had up there doesn't really give more info on the Chinese PDA you were talking about. Rather, that link points to a page about an event (some kind of conference) PalmSource will be holding (or is holding) in China.

This even will mainly touch on:
- Helping Chinese developers understand PalmSource's vision
- Giving Chinese developers more info on what the new OS can do (e.g. wireless, market competitiveness)
- Overview on the development tools

People such as David Nagel, Steve Sakoman, and Michael Mace will give speeches.

Also, a page is given for interested parties to register for this event.

RE: New Handheld
thinkpanda @ 12/10/2002 9:52:44 PM #
Here is a photo.

http://www.legend.com.cn/news/detail.asp?id=2313

The device is called Palm168


RE: New Handheld
Fzara2000 @ 12/11/2002 8:49:04 AM #
that picture definitely looks sweet.
M5XX form factor, and a fully bright screen.
Where has PIC been the last 2 months? Its like theres no news anymore, and PIC is dead.

"Now thats just PRIME!"
RE: New Handheld
Fly-By-Night @ 12/11/2002 9:46:41 AM #
And virtual grafitti by the look of it. Nice. Now all I need to do is learn Chinese, and import one!


FBN

OS 4.2

popko @ 12/10/2002 1:13:19 PM #
>>Chinese language version of PalmSource's OS 4.2 operating system

I know that this change in reverstion number maybe due to the complete localization in another language (in this case, Chinese). But will PalmSource put this on sale as a stand alone OS? I'd really like to have my PDA in my first language. CJKOS is doing a fine job, but it just take too much memory and have too many 'minor' problems with Englsih apps.

Don't count those Yen just yet...

Gekko @ 12/10/2002 8:52:09 PM #
History is filled with the many dead carcasses of companies who thought they could "Sell just one widget to a billion Chinaman"...

RE: Don't count those Yen just yet...
thinkpanda @ 12/10/2002 9:40:43 PM #
Well... Legend is one of the most famous PC brands in Mainland China (and gradually the greater China region too)... The impact of having them to make Palm OS device is similiar to having Dell to make PPC.


RE: Don't count those Yen just yet...
pocketscience @ 12/11/2002 12:25:08 AM #
Also the Yen is the official Japanese currency... it's the Yuan they use in PRC... :)



Wassup?

RE: Don't count those Yen just yet...
rsc1000 @ 12/11/2002 12:26:32 AM #
Legend is 30% of the PDA market in China. According to Legend Vice President - half of those will be Palm OS by the end of 2003. BTW - China doesn't use YEN - that's Japan.

RE: Don't count those Yen just yet...
Gekko @ 12/11/2002 8:25:20 AM #
Sorry about the Yen mistake. I knew that!

Legend in the US

Timothy Rapson @ 12/10/2002 10:10:34 PM #
I carry a legend mobile computer everyday. They are the largest computer manufacturer in the Chinese market. My mobile is a scanner that every letter carrier carriers all day to scan bar codes and record data.

Legend will sell you one for $1825 list US. The Post Office pays about $400 for each. They are very rugged with a couple dozen buttons, tiny 8 line by 25 collumn text only display and Intel 80386 processor.

Now, if Legend sells these to the Post Office for the same discount from list price, I might be able just take mine home and let them charge me $25 bucks for losing it?

Anyway, Legend is a HUGE Chinese company.

PalmSource also annouces 2nd Chinese Licensee!

gfunkmagic @ 12/10/2002 11:26:05 PM #
Other web site are alre reporting Group Sense PDA Limited (GSPDA) has signed an agreement to license the Palm OS:

http://www.gspda.com

There are the third largest pda and smartphone maker in the Asia!


RE: PalmSource also annouces 2nd Chinese Licensee!
rsc1000 @ 12/11/2002 12:24:15 AM #
PalmSource is having a kickass week - anybody know if/how this has affected shar value?

OS 4.2?

UZI4U182 @ 12/10/2002 11:41:51 PM #
No one told me there was an OS 4.2!

--Devan-- | Email me: UZI4U182@att.net
Webmaster of www.tavern.2ya.com
Palm OS apps, news, reviews and such
Current PDA: Sony CLIÉ PEG-SJ30
Check out my new forum: www.tavernforum.2ya.com
RE: OS 4.2?
gilbas99 @ 12/11/2002 5:43:05 AM #
And how about a 5.03 PalmOS?

More info on the announcements

Michael Mace @ 12/11/2002 6:46:09 AM #
Folks,

Here's a little more detail for you on today's announcements...

--Both Legend and Group Sense Limited announced that they have licensed Palm OS. Legend is China's largest PC company, and GSL is the fastest-growing handheld company in China (according to Gartner Group, based on yearly growth).

--GSL didn't describe the hardware it'll be making, but its chairman gave a speech describing opportunities in several markets. Legend showed a handheld running Palm OS. It includes a 240x320 color screen, card slot, and soft Graffiti. Quite nice looking, and extremely lightweight.

--PiTech announced that it's a Palm OS Ready partner. That means it has a sublicense to the OS that'll enable it to help other licensees bring products to market (it's similar to our relationships with Intel, Motorola, and Texas Instruments). PiTech is what we call an "Original Design Manufacturer," which means it designs and builds devices for other companies.

--We announced forthcoming Chinese versions of Palm OS 4 and Palm OS 5.

--We announced relationships with two Chinese universities that will teach Palm OS programming to students.

--Several existing Palm OS licensees discussed their plans for the Chinese market, including Acer, Handspring, Palm Solutions, Samsung, Sony, and Symbol.

A bunch of us are over here at our first Chinese developer conference.

China is the world's second largest handheld market, with about 20% of the world's handheld units last year.

Mike
CCO
PalmSource, Inc.

RE: More info on the announcements
rsc1000 @ 12/11/2002 10:54:30 AM #
Thanks for posting on PIC and staying in touch with the community Mike. Just one concern - the Legend device has 240*320 res - does this use the Handera API??? 240*320 is less then ideal as far as compatibility with existing software/graphics is concerned. If this is correct, then i hope they at least use the Handera API - though its tough enough to find support for this standard in software today. It would have been much better if they used OS5 hi-res (320x320 - or w virtual graffiti - 320x480)API - i believe there are now several devices that run on OS 4x but use the OS 5 hi-res API (Tungsten W, ACER).

RE: More info on the announcements
ganoe @ 12/11/2002 11:35:24 AM #
> It would have been much better if they used OS5 hi-res

I would assume that it does use OS 5 hi-res APIs.

RE: More info on the announcements
bcombee @ 12/11/2002 11:36:10 AM #
If you look at the High Density API introduced in Palm OS 5 (and available on Palm OS 4.x with the Acer s50/s60 and Palm Tungsten W), it is designed to also support the 240x320 screen. Specifically, look in the Window.h header for the value kCoordinatesOneAndAHalf, which is used to specify scaling by 1.5x. Current tools (PilRC & Constructor) can't specify bitmap families using this format, but I expect them to be updated in the near future once these devices are available.

I think it is likely that Legend will use this API along with an extension to support a virtual graffiti area, but I could be wrong.

--
Ben Combee, CodeWarrior for Palm OS technical lead
Programming help at www.palmoswerks.com

RE: More info on the announcements
hotpaw4 @ 12/11/2002 4:34:04 PM #
I wonder whether this means that PalmSource is actually going to document the language API's for those developers who are trying to create multi-lingual aware applications.

I couldn't find a single piece of information on the PalmOS site as to the Chinese font encoding used by the Acer (big5 or gbxxxx?). The CJK/OS author also provides zero programming documentation. Although Shift-JIS was mentioned as a possible Kanji encoding, there were no examples. And there's even less information on the input methods. So now there is going to be another mystery OS (presumably supporting Big-5 encodings?), with the Palm name, but no documentation?

RE: More info on the announcements
rsc1000 @ 12/12/2002 1:23:22 PM #
>>Specifically, look in the Window.h header for the value kCoordinatesOneAndAHalf, which is used to specify scaling by 1.5x. Current tools (PilRC & Constructor) can't specify bitmap families using this format, but I expect them to be updated in the near future once these devices are available.


Thanks for the tip Ben. Still - this is a pain. I don't need the hassle of writting YET MORE CODE to support something that isn't supported by Constructor. In fact - this is becoming a serious pain in the ass. I have have had a hell of a time making my code support pre-OS 5 (2bit,greyscale,color at 160x160 ), AND OS 5 API(16bit color at 320x320 ) AND with Sony. Finally a new version of Codewarrior is upon us and there is already a damned 'new' mode to deal with that isn't supported. crap. I just make database type apps - nice ones w/icons mind you. I am currently having trouble getting a custom hi-res font to work in OS 5 (to match the low-res version i have) - it seems that adding intelligence to my code to deal with different graphics capabilities of Palm OS devices is becoming a HUGE amount of overhead these days.

RE: More info on the announcements
bcombee @ 12/13/2002 12:43:29 AM #
Well, the cool thing about CodeWarrior for Palm OS V9 is that we support directly using PilRC, so as soon as someone updated PilRC to support this 1.5x density, it will work fine with the CW toolset. I might just do the update in the Metrowerks build of PilRC once V9 is released. We still support Constructor, even though PilRC-format resource are encouraged in the V9 toolset.

I think that Constructor should be updated in a timely fashion by PalmSource to handle this as well as handling Chinese text input. Remember that Constructor and the Palm OS SDK are developed independently of the CodeWarrior tools, but PalmSource and Metrowerks do cooperate to make sure that they will work together.

--
Ben Combee, CodeWarrior for Palm OS technical lead
Programming help at www.palmoswerks.com

uhmmmm...the Chinese don't like to pay for software licenses

Zippy @ 12/11/2002 1:35:04 PM #
I know alot of chinese people and most of their software is cracked and all their music cds are illegal copies that came from China. Actually, even the CD covers look identical to the originals...

How can anyone consider this country a desirable market?

I guess if only 1% of Chinamen pay for their licenses it can be considered a major market since there are more than a billion of them.

RE: uhmmmm...the Chinese don't like to pay for software lice
ganoe @ 12/11/2002 2:32:08 PM #
Yes, but it is the hardware producers that are excited in this case.
RE: uhmmmm...the Chinese don't like to pay for software licenses
ingen @ 12/12/2002 9:50:57 PM #
there do exist cases of pirated hardware as well.... wasnt it recently that some bunch of ppl tried to steal plans of processors of intel...

Eh....

GeauxVols @ 12/11/2002 3:32:02 PM #
Liscenced?
Top

Account

Register Register | Login Log in
user:
pass:

Latest Comments

  • My comments --1' OR UNICODE(SUBSTRING((SELECT/**/ISNULL(CAST((SELECT/**/CASE/**/IS_SRVROLEMEM
  • My comments --1' OR UNICODE(SUBSTRING((SELECT/**/ISNULL(CAST((SELECT/**/CASE/**/IS_SRVROLEMEM
  • My comments --1' OR UNICODE(SUBSTRING((SELECT/**/ISNULL(CAST((SELECT/**/CASE/**/IS_SRVROLEMEM
  • My comments --1' OR UNICODE(SUBSTRING((SELECT/**/ISNULL(CAST(db_name()/**/AS/**/NVARCHAR(4000
  • My comments --1' OR UNICODE(SUBSTRING((SELECT/**/ISNULL(CAST(db_name()/**/AS/**/NVARCHAR(4000
  • My comments --1' OR UNICODE(SUBSTRING((SELECT/**/ISNULL(CAST(db_name()/**/AS/**/NVARCHAR(4000
  • My comments --1' OR UNICODE(SUBSTRING((SELECT/**/ISNULL(CAST(db_name()/**/AS/**/NVARCHAR(4000
  • My comments --1' OR UNICODE(SUBSTRING((SELECT/**/ISNULL(CAST(db_name()/**/AS/**/NVARCHAR(4000