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Originally Posted by hacker
pa1mOne makes the Treo, and there is a very specific reason why they split from Palmsource... so they could entertain putting other OS versions on their hardware. Yes, their current devices use PalmOS, but there's no reason why they have to continue to do so.
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IIRC, the reason for the split was to resolve the conflict of interest that arose from being both the developer of the OS that it licensed to third parties and a hardware manufacturer itself that competed with those third parties. (Back then, Sony was still in the game and there was also Handera.)
I think it would be unwise from a marketing standpoint if PalmOne released a non-PalmOS device. PalmOne is pretty much equated with PalmOS and many people refer to their device as a "Palm". If they, for instance, released a WinCE device they would just be one of many, competing with the likes of Dell and HP and also the cheaper brands such as Asus, Qtek, Mitac, whatnot. PalmOS is what makes their brand unique as they are the only major licensee left (at least in the US and Europe).