Palm Says 'Be' Has Arrived, but Its OS Chief Is Departing

Palm (PALM Quote) added a high-profile departure to the ranks of staff loss, bidding adieu to Alan Kessler, head of its Platform Solutions Group.

The handheld maker announced Kessler's departure at a crucial time for his group. Palm recently spun off the Platform Solutions Group, the stewards of Palm's popular operating system, into a wholly owned subsidiary. The new structure will direct more attention to the OS -- because the group has its own advisory committee led by AT&T Labs chief and techno-visionary David Nagel, and because it positions the group to spin off into a separate public company should the market return to its former vigor and find the OS an attractive offering.

Kessler has been with the company since 1999, after a 14-year career with once-parent company 3Com (COMS Quote). After spending over a year as Palm's chief operating officer, Kessler took the helm of the Platform Solutions Group this March. After just five months on the job, Kessler departs at a troubled time for Palm, but in the midst of a time of opportunity for the OS group.

Palm did not announce a replacement, and Kessler revealed no particular destination. During 2001 about 25% of Palm employees are also leaving the company in the form of layoffs.

The news was encapsulated in a press release heralding Palm's addition of some crucial Be (BEOS Quote) operating system technology, to be paid for with $11 million in Palm stock. Former Apple bigwig and Be CEO Jean Louis Gassee will become a temporary adviser to Palm, reporting to the Platform Solutions Group Committee on Palm's board of directors. Palm has offered to hire the engineers behind the Be technology

"Despite Palm's leading market share, its OS has been lacking," says William Crawford of U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray, who adds that the Be components will bring improvements in the three "multis" -- multimedia, multitasking and multiprocessing, the handling of multiple chips on a single device. "Be's OS has been admired by a lot of technologists for its architecture and forward vision of how important multimedia is going to be. Palm gets to acquire at least some of that."