Palm announced that it will work closely with RIM its PalmSource Developer Seminar in San Mateo today. Despite a deal with RIM's bitter rival, Good Technologies, Palm sees itself as a neutral platform company, and the choice will be down to enterprise customers or the big system integrators.

The consumer side received a boost with the announcement of a games console based on Palm OS 5. Start-up Tapwave, a company with Palm in its genes, will launch its Helix console late this year. The prototypes won early praise and the $199 and $299 (with camera) pricing looks set to appeal to the wealthy target demographic. At 320x480 it offers considerably more potential for glitzy graphics than Nokia's N-Gage, a Symbian/Series 60 device with a 176x208 display. Both devices sport Bluetooth for wireless multiplayer gaming.

Palm also announced a new industrial licensee Aceeca, and a developer programme to accelerate ARM-based applications to the new OS.

PalmSource's David Nagel said recently that more imagination was needed in the communicator space, and that there would be space for two-box solutions. He's certainly right: and Palm's commitment to Bluetooth gives its licensees far more options to design such a combination than rival Microsoft. ®