Palm's Pre debuted with a bang at CES this past January and was arguably the star of the show. Palm has struggled to remain a relevant, profitable player in the smartphone market for years; the company's last major smartphone (the Centro, released in the fall of 2007) was reasonably well-received, but it couldn't entirely negate the barrage of negative criticism that hit Palm following the cancellation of the ill-fated Foleo.

In a meeting with investors today, Palm President and CEO Ed Colligan confirmed that the company intends to leave its past behind and to devote itself entirely to its new webOS-after twelve-plus years, Palm OS is finally headed for retirement.

When it debuted in 1996, Palm OS was light years ahead of anything else on the market, and it set the standard for the devices that followed. Early versions of Windows CE and Windows Mobile were considered inferior to the equivalent version of Palm OS, but Palm's operating system required device-specific tuning and proved difficult to expand when it came time to add new features.