Its now been more than two years since the now-defunct Be Inc. released Version 5 of its innovative desktop operating system, BeOS. Unfortunately, Be shifted its focus to the Internet appliance operating system market around the same time—a gamble that succeeded in sealing Bes doom, ensuring that BeOS would never see another release.
However, BeOS remained the platform on which the BeIA appliance operating system was developed and did receive some internal updates before Be pulled the plug on itself and sold its technology to Palm. Last month, I got ahold of a Web-leaked BeOS 5.1 update, which most notably includes the long-awaited, rewritten BeOS Networking Environment—BONE.
It was nice to see BeOS back up and running—with a kernel dated November 2001—but it looks as though theres no more future for BeOS now than there was two years ago for the Internet appliance focus for which Be ditched its well-loved operating system.