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I guess the idea is to maintain the PalmOS Garnet look and feel (probably updated and with more multitasking or multiwindowing), but to allow Win Mobile and PalmOS devices to share hardware and core platform features so they can share technology. I guess there's a lot of duplicated work to get similar products out now. The need to do data and voice at the same time is a big deal also.
Plus, you have to figure that the whole "3rd line of business" thing is in the mention of a Linux-based, inexpensive device with communications. It's supposed to be revealed next month after all.
The Linux base is supposed to allow more form factors and faster product releases. I like to believe that the slow pace was because of all the investment done on Linux and that 3rd line of business. We'll see over the next year or two whether Palm is going to become an innovator again, or if the slow pace and incremental unimaginative products are the Palm of the future. (Treo is their cutting edge device, and really not too much has changed since the Treo 600 in 2003 other than slow incremental improvements. Yet they still have a great product. Kind of like the Dell Axim line, but oh yeah, look what happened to that!)
Personally, I like Palm and want to see them succeed. But with the explosion of development in the Win Mobile world and the tie-ins to Vista that we can expect with future versions (like One Note or how WinMob6 has a simple version of the TIP for better handwriting input, which is sorely needed), we PalmOS users can't help but think again about the switch. Now, there's hope that Palm might be able to deliver advanced and powerful devices into the future, and spur more development as well. I hope so.
And just in time -- I had just pretty much decided to go with the next really nice Win Mobile smartphone I see that has good battery life and a 320x320 or better screen. Now, it's wait (a little while) and see.
Come on Palm... do it one more time. Amaze us and make us believers again.
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