Gossip

So where actually is the new Orange Treo 650? Microsoft Treo??

Your Sniffer did a small assignment for a large, French-owned telco's mobile network arm recently. In the UK. OK, for Orange, heck, you can't hide the truth for ever. So, with a "Visitor" badge to flash, your hero casually strolled into the canteen and engaged innocent staff in idle chit-chat...

"Bill was saying there's still no sign of the Treo being sorted out," said the Hunky Mouse, casually to a couple of CSA supervisors.

A few coffees later, and the message became clear: "If you want to know where the Treo 650 is, ask PalmOne."

According to the illicitly sniffed packets we found, the Treo makes a lovely PDA. "But it was a pants fone," said our source, clearly under the impression we were from Accounts. "So we sent it back to PalmOne with instructions to stop it dropping calls, to fix up the audio, and to make it behave like something from 2005 instead of 1995..."

Which is fascinating... but can it explain the embarrassing scenes in the Landmark Hotel, London, where a Very Senior Orange Person produced his Treo 650, and switched it on, and carelessly allowed all others at the table to see that it was not running PalmOs, but Windows Mobile 2005?

Several people eagerly produced camera-phones to record this, and the phone was hastily tucked away where the sun can't shine.

A Microsoft Treo from PalmOne? Should we tell David Nagel at PalmSource, do you think?