Stephen Wildstrom, writing in BusinessWeek Online today reports that Palm will soon announce a Treo powered not by Palm OS software but by Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 5!
Palm sold its stake in the Palm OS software over the last number of years so it can now be agnostic about its choice of OS for the Treo. Palm will still use Palm OS for the Zire, Tungsten, and LifeDrive PDA models but
the market for these nonphone handhelds has been declining for several years, as wireless handsets take up more of their functions.
Palm say, according to Wildstrom, that they will sell both Palm OS and Windows Treos for the indefinite future, however, if history teaches us anything, it is that Microsoft’s software is likely to dominate the market over time.
Symbian, not Microsoft or Palm, currently dominates the smartphone market. All Palm are doing is uncoupling their hardware from a software developer who’s fortunes have been in decline since the spin off.
And to think, this was the same strategy the “Apple needs to split into two companies” camp were trying to ram down of throats from 1994 to 1998. Palm just proved that it doesn’t work.
True enough Mark but with this significant competitor dealt with, Microsoft now only have one competitor in this market to focus their considerable energies on.
Does this mean that Microsoft is actually BETTER software in this case?!!!!
They certainly can’t be accused of having a monopoly – I can choose between 3 handheld OSes now.
It doesn’t mean that at all Ed – it just means that it made financial sense for Palm to do this – possibly Microsoft made them an offer they couldn’t refuse!
Sure – but if this kills the Palm OS then you are down to two.