PocketGear’s Matt Stein has just informed us that his company has just resurrected its once market-leading PalmGear franchise, after having merged it into its main and name-giving franchise PocketGear a few months ago.

Matt’s official message is as follows:

We’re excited to announce that the team at PocketGear has relaunched PalmGear.com, the original App Store for Palm OS devices. PalmGear.com originally launched in 1997 providing software downloads for the original Palm Pilots and is a PC Magazine Top 100 Classic Site. PalmGear.com is now back online with over 30,000 software titles available for download to enhance your Palm OS device, including support for the new Palm Centro! Visit PalmGear.com today to browse and download games, multimedia software, business software and utilities. Trial versions are available for download so you can “try before you buy”. The website is under new management and to celebrate the launch we are offering 20% off your next purchase! http://www.palmgear.com

Developers have been extremely unhappy about the merger - many of them reported loosing over 50% of their sales through the channel. Furthermore, the distribution system used as back-end software recently started to fail in a spectacular fashion (TamsPalm reports here), causing further grief (and cost due to botched advertising campaigns) for developers.

PocketGear representatives have informed us that the back-end system has now been replaced and that issues like the ones outlined in the post above are a matter of the past.

We are currently pursuing comments and quotes from key people in the industry - however, the initial tenor in the heavily-struck Palm OS developer community can be described as jubilant.

Jan Slodicka, the CEO of Resco’s Palm division, has provided us with the following preliminary statement (more to come soon):

Great, Tam. Finally a positive message.

I personally think that the PalmGear/PocketGear franchises have shown significant signs of neglect(especially compared to MobiHand’s offerings) over the last two years. This is not surprising, as their former owner Motricity had other, better-paying issues to care about (stuff like ring tones). The new management, on the other hand, is focused solely on the core ESD business…which may have positive impact on the mobile computing economy.

PalmGear/PocketGear is under immense pressure from two ends: as developers migrate(flee) to technically superior MobiHand-powered offers; device and OS vendors are said to start deploying their own software stores soon. Their main venue of growth IMHO is the vast field of developers dissatisfied after Handango’s recent contract and rate borkups.

Fast action is needed from the PocketGear management if the company wants to remain a key player in the ESD business - stay tuned to TamsPalm for further info on what happens!