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Palm ready to announce Windows Treo PDA-phone - rumours add Symbian, too

Speculation over the launch of two new Palm Treo phones reached new heights this weekend, with the suggestion that tomorrow's launch of "Purple Haze" - the Treo based on Windows Mobile - might be followed by a Symbian version.

Unconfirmed reports say Verizon, Palm and Microsoft will announce the Microsoft Treo Monday, with Bill Gates and Ed Colligan, CEO of Palm, sharing a podium with Verizon.

That the phone exists isn't in doubt; early samples have been seen in the hands of senior phone company execs as long ago as April. That Palm has not just divorced from PalmSource is equally not in dispute - PalmOS is being re-written as a Linux program.

But is it sufficient for Palm to go for Windows? Apparently, many inside the grip of Palm think Symbian would work equally well, if not better.

Ewan Spence at All About Palm summed it up: "Palm is in desperate need of a multi-tasking, multi-threaded operating system that can handle the modern day requirements of a smartphone (e.g. a push email client, IM client and web browser all running at the same time)...[but] would you bet your entire company's mobile strategy on Microsoft? A company that has been trying to squeeze Palm in the PDA market for a number of years? Would you make yourself beholden to their licence terms? Or would you make sure you had a second option?"

Spence believes the surprise could be unveiled this coming month, at the Smartphone Show.

The Smartphone show which used to be called Symbian Expo

Speculation from All About Palm