Investment bank Needham & Co. published a note yesterday claiming that PalmOne had “tacitly admitted” it was developing a version of the Treo smartphone that used Microsoft’s mobile versions of Windows as its operating system. Of course the news hit PalmOS maintainer PalmSource pretty badly as investors freaked a little about the future of the OS in general, but soon everyone else appeared to have adopted the same “wait and see” attitude we’ll have to take, as well.
It’s not inconceivable that PalmOne could make a Windows Treo—in fact, it could be an excellent choice, as they have a real need to diversify their product line, and a lone Treo among a bunch of PDAs isn’t enough. I was expecting a low-end Treo running PalmOS, though, not a Windows version. Interesting stuff.
PalmSource takes hit on investment report [CNet via Treonauts]
