Palm: we're keeping the webOS

Palm's presence at Mobile World Congress this year has perplexed many people... especially as it decided against holding a press conference.

Although TechRadar has heard on the whisper grapevine that a Palm Pre is making its way to Europe, there's been no official comment from the manufacturer.

However, Palm did confirm to us that the Palm Pre's new webOS won't be leveraged to other manufacturers, contrary to other media reports in recent weeks, as well as talking about the recent decision to pull the plug on the Palm OS system.

Positive

"The reaction to losing the Palm OS has been remarkably positive, we consider developers fundamental to the process [of making the Palm Pre and webOS a success]," said Pam Deziel - VP of software product management for Palm.

"The webOS will not be going to other platforms, although we do expect it to be the basis of devices to come from Palm."

Given the large amount of work gone into developing the webOS, it's expected that more devices will be appearing soon, although Deziel refused to comment on rumours a budget handset could be in the works, simply stating it was a possibility.

"Touch is fundamental to the webOS," said Deziel. "The platform is flexible and designed to support a range of phones.

"With the interface we put the user at the centre of design to create the most intuitive product."

Media success

The Palm Pre has certainly proved a media success since its debut at CES in January, and although there have been few handsets spotted in the wild, the public are already hungry to find out when more will be arriving.

Palm is also still in a bullish mood over the reports that Apple is readying a law suit against the company over certain elements of the Pre:

"We've got a portfolio of IP like they [Apple] have, ready to defend ourselves," added Deziel.

When quizzed on whether Palm developed the platform completely from scratch, she said the company drew on what was already available:

"Everybody draws from what they hear from users and the opportunities offered by the technology available to us, and we've done a terrific job creating something innovative."