Palm Takes Aim At Enterprise With WebOS 1.1

Palm has released Palm webOS 1.1, which the company hopes will make the Palm Pre smartphone more appealing to businesses of all sizes, a Palm executive said.

In a nod to businesses and enterprise users, Palm webOS 1.1 brings several additions to Palm’s support for Exchange ActiveSync, including remote wipe, PIN/password requirements, inactivity timeout, improved certificate handling, and more, the company said.

Released yesterday, in addition to these business-friendly enhancements, Palm webOS Version 1.1 “also includes a few other goodies for everyone – like support for emoticons in the messaging app, and the ability to set ‘person reminders’ in the contacts app,” said John Traynor, vice president of Business Products at Palm.

“‘Pre and business just got a lot friendlier,” Traynor said in a blog post, suggesting the rivalry with Apple was still ongoing.

He added: “Oh, and one more thing: Palm webOS 1.1 re-enables Palm media sync. That’s right – you once again can have seamless access to your music, photos and videos from the current version of iTunes (8.2.1).”

In addition, new applications with webOS 1.1 include multimedia streaming of sports events on their phones, like NFL Mobile Live from Sprint in the US.