Nearly a year ago, PocketGear closed the doors on venerable Palm-application market PalmGear. The site opened up for business back in 1997, at the beginning of the mobile-device revolution Palm and the Palm OS helped to engender. Well, in case you missed it, the site unexpectedly re-launched this month.

The new PalmGear, which looks a lot like the old one, offers over 30,000 software titles for download. And, if you remember it (of course), you can login to PalmGear using your original account to access all of the Palm OS software and license codes that you previously purchased from the site.

To celebrate PalmGear's re-launch, it is offering a 20 percent off your next download when you enter coupon code NEWOWNERS.

While there are still a very large number of Palm OS applications, far outstripping any other mobile OS, the platform itself has fallen technologically way behind others, such as RIM BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Symbian, and the iPhone.

Also, many of the Palm OS devices out there now are legacy PDAs and smartphones. And Palm itself is the last of the mobile-device vendors using the aging platform in new devices; in the popular Centro smartphone, for example.

So you’d think the market for Palm OS apps is pretty small now and getting smaller all the time. Not so fast

Styletap, for instance, offers a solution to run Palm OS apps on Windows Mobile devices. And it's planning a version for the Symbian platform and iPhone (if Apple lets it) as well. In addition, ACCESS (formally PalmSource) includes a Palm OS emulator in its follow up to the Palm OS, called ALP, and Palm itself is planning on doing the same thing with upcoming sequel to the Palm platform.

Consequently, it appears, even when the Palm OS finally dies and is no longer used in new devices, the apps offered by PalmGear will have a place in the mobile market for some time to come.