M-Systems Joins Palm OS Ready Program to Enhance Memory

PalmSource and M-Systems, a flash-based data storage products company, today announced plans to enhance the memory solution for Palm OS handhelds and smartphones. Joining the Palm OS Ready Program, M-Systems' NAND flash-based memory storage technologies will be made available to Palm OS licensees.

M-Systems' approach to managing flash memory is designed to allow licensees to speed time-to-market and lower overall device costs for Palm Powered handhelds and smartphones. M-Systems joins the list of Palm OS Ready Partners that include Intel, ATI, MediaQ, Motorola, Samsung and Texas Instruments.

"With the increasing demand for storage-heavy multimedia usage, we believe that M-Systems' addition to our Palm OS Ready Program delivers the depth of storage components our Palm OS licensees have been requesting," said Larry Slotnick, chief product officer for PalmSource. "M-Systems' expertise in memory-storage technology will enable Palm OS licensees to deliver a wide range of Palm Powered mobile devices with cost effective memory management solutions needed to efficiently store a variety of multimedia formats."

Through the Palm OS Ready Program, M-Systems and PalmSource will provide pre-integrated support for M-Systems' mobile DiskOnChip product family to offer a high capacity, non-volatile, flash memory storage system for Palm Powered handhelds and smartphones. Based on M-Systems' family of products that introduced NAND and Multi-Level Cell (MLC) NAND technologies and a built-in ultra thin controller, mobile DiskOnChip provides high memory system performance, enables reliable storage, saves on power consumption and reduces overall system cost. M-Systems' unique storage architecture also ensures data reliability guaranteeing that users never lose their data even after power failure.

"Mobile DiskOnChip, based on the most advanced NAND technologies, allows Palm OS licensees to provide the storage requirements for new features and capabilities such as cameras, color screens, voice recognition, games, and video," said David Tolub, vice president and co-manager of M-Systems' DiskOnChip business unit. "Our expanded role within the Palm Economy ensures that licensees and consumers, using this new storage capability, will have improved access to the cost reduction, power savings, increased performance, and data integrity that Mobile DiskOnChip offers."

"The Palm OS Ready program allows PalmSource to offer its licensees a strong selection of established technology partners," said Tim Bajarin, analyst for Creative Strategies. "M-Systems expertise in flash storage technologies allows PalmSource to enhance its offerings to include reliable internal data storage at increased capacities -- a key component to new Palm Powered devices."