At Web 2.0 Expo, Palm, revealed more details regarding the Palm Pre and its developer program for the new Palm webOS
platform, their cloud service and a Palm OS emulator that will allow legacy Palm apps to run on the Palm Pre. The Mojo SDK, previously available only to a select group of partners, will be provided to a broader set of interested developers that apply for access to the program at the Palm Developer Network website (http://developer.palm.com). Access to the program initially will be limited as the tools and systems continue to be refined and improved, with general availability scheduled for later this year.
Palm also announced that it would deploy its first Palm branded cloud service. Cloud services are software resources provided over the Internet. These services can deliver direct benefits to the end user, such as giving them access to their favorite web applications, or can be incorporated by developers into their applications to enhance the end-user experience.
When the Mojo SDK is broadly released later this year, it will include a developer-facing offering called the Mojo Messaging Service, an XMPP publish/subscribe service. The Mojo Messaging Service is an elegant, standards-based way to exchange information over the Internet. When new information is available, it is "published" to the cloud and all interested parties who are subscribers are notified that new information is available. This will allow developers to push live content to their applications or services. The Mojo Messaging Service initially will have a limited feature set and service level that will evolve over time.
Palm webOS is a new kind of mobile platform. Standard web technologies, such as HTML, JavaScript and CSS, are deeply integrated into the webOS architecture, enabling a much broader developer community to easily create compelling applications. The ability to customize webOS applications will appeal to developers and ultimately benefit consumers with a unique and differentiated user experience.
Palm also announced that MotionApps (www.motionapps.com) is creating an emulator application that will allow most Palm OS applications to run on webOS devices. The application, called "Classic," will be available for purchase when the Palm Pre™ phone becomes available from Sprint in the first half of 2009, and gives users peace of mind as they transition to Palm's new webOS.
Since Palm OS applications running in Classic won't be able to leverage core webOS functionality, Palm is working with partners to ensure that popular Palm OS applications are made available on the webOS platform and are optimized to take advantage of everything it has to offer. In the meantime, the MotionApps Classic application will allow customers who have invested in the Palm OS platform to use Palm OS applications they've grown to love and depend upon on their new webOS devices.
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