Sunnyvale (CA) - Palm, former owner and developer of Palm OS, has licensed the operating system from its new owner Access. According to the agreement, $44 million buys Palm a perpetual license for the source code of Palm OS Garnet and "specific rights" to modify the code base for use in devices such as the Treo smartphone.

Access acquired PalmSource, which had been established as the software arm of Palm in 2003, in September 2005 for $324 million. Last month, the company announced the elimination of the name PalmSource and the integration of Palm OS into the Access brand.

The latest device to use Palm OS Garnet (version 5.4.9) is the recently announced Treo 680 smartphone.