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What do Palm and Symbian have in common? Read Allaboutit!

Allaboutpalm is easily explained. Look at Allaboutsymbian, or AAS, which is a watchword for those smartphone users who need to know what is happening in the Symbian world - mostly, Nokia, but also Sony Ericsson. And Allaboutpalm is the same thing, but about PalmOS based systems.

The astonishing thing is that there's no rivalry between the two sites. That's because the same dedicated nutcases who run AAS, now do AAP. They will, they promise, be equally dedicated nutcases about Palm, and have already hired specialist staff to cover this mobile vehicle.

Here's yesterday's official announcement, word for word: "Rafe Blandford and Ewan Spence today launched All About Palm - a community website for Palm Powered smartphones and PDAs."

The announcement was timed to hit the forthcoming PalmSource Mobile Summit and Devcon in San Jose this week, starting tomorrow: delegates may be in for a shock.

Spence is a Scot and doesn't hide it; he was seen parading around Cannes during the last 3GSM congress in his kilt. He'll be promenading around the Fairmont  hotel in the same miniskirt promoting both Scotland and the site.

Rafe, less ostentatious in his Caledonian links, has been equally dedicated to all things Symbian - and the decision to go Palm is not, he insists, treachery. Rather, it's the second step in the building of a publishing empire aimed at the canny developer.

And it's their insight into developer technology which they reckon will give the newcomer its edge in getting Palm attention.

All About Symbian became a Symbian, Ltd. affiliate partner - it was only launched four years ago, in 2001 - and today, the pair can claim a monthly readership in excess of a million, "making it the most popular community news site for the Symbian operating system" they said on their new site.

Before All About Palm was launched, the main specialist Palm site -which up to now has basked alone in the support and encouragement of David Nagel's PalmSource enthusiasm -  was  Palm Infocenter. Is there room for both specialists?

Spence says he thinks so. All About Palm, he promises, will publish on a daily basis, and is already firmly plugged into the hierarchy. The news about Ed Colligan's appointment to the post of CEO at PalmOne broke on All About Palm on the 17th - four days before the site went live, and it had followed up with a story about the appointment of John Hartnett and Mark Bercow as senior VPs a day later.

So when the pair say they have "a close relationship to PalmSource," they aren't exaggerating and this is a site which should instantly be added to your Bloglines list.

One caveat for the serial entrepreneurs: don't call yourself AAP. At least, not in South Africa, where an aap is a chipanzee...

All About Palm  web site.

All About Ngage  web site.

All About Mobiles web site.

All about Series 80 web site.

Symbian Themes  web site.