P almSource, the company behind the Palm OS, today announced that Jean-Louis Gass?e has been appointed Chairman of the PalmSource Board of Directors. Gass?e joined the PalmSource board in May 2002 and replaces Eric Benhamou, who resigned his position last week.
Gass?e spent nine years at Apple, starting in 1981. He founded Be, Inc. after his departure in 1990 and tried for ten years to make the Be operating system a viable desktop contender, finally resigning in 2002 before the company was dissolved. It is said that prior to Appleis purchase of NeXT in 1996, Apple had explored purchasing Be and using its operating system as a basis for the next-generation Mac OS but that Gass?eis asking price was too high.