Fortt said that he came to that conclusion after spending a couple of hours at Palm's Sunnyvale headquarters yesterday, chatting with Marlene Somsak, vice president of corporate communications; and spokesmen Jim Christensen and Jimmy Johnson.

One of the things that Fortt learned about Palm was that 80 percent of the company's engineers are software engineers, and the company still prides itself on its ability to design mobile software that�s easy to use. Wow, it looks to me like Palm is more than capable of digging back into the software end of things! But despite all that, Fortt feels Palm is in real danger of losing control of its destiny.

So Fortt just came out and asked the three Palm executives if there is any chance that Access would just give Palm the source code. And here is what followed:

"That's a good question to ask them," Jim said.

"I'm sure if anybody's asking them, you are," I said.

"Well, it's an interesting idea," Jim offered. "So, I don't know how to answer that one, actually. We're going to continue to develop on it anyway."

"If they were to give you the source code, would you take it?" I asked.

"Probably," Marlene said, "but I can't imagine, I mean, yeah. It's certainly a hypothetical."

"It's a hypothetical, but have you asked for it?"

"I'm sure there have been all sorts of discussions about ways to best take the Palm OS forward, but I don't think that we would be at liberty to say what was proposed or responded, or anything like that," Marlene said. "But clearly, we introduced four new phones this year, two Palm OS, two Windows Mobile. We're committed to Palm OS. We want to see it go forward. ... We want to have control of our own destiny, and riding multiple horses is definitely a good way to stay in the race."

Sooooo..... will Palm take control of its destiny and get the source code from Access? I sure hope so because lately, it's looking like Access is an albatross around Palm's neck. Hmmm, where I have heard that before? ;-)