Good for Palm. I had Palm devices for years until they fell on hard times and I bought a Windows Mobile PDA. The frustrations of Windows Mobile make be long for another Palm.

Not sure why Palm would pay Microsoft to use Windows Mobile when they have developed their own phone OS.

Made sense before WebOS (and even before Android), but with in-house or free alternatives, not much reason to stick with proprietary Microsoft. (Yeah WebOS is proprietary, but at least Palm owns it).

Well, good, maybe Microsoft will make their own phones and step away from "we're a software company." If WinMo 7 is any where near as good as it's hyped up to be, maybe it's wise for Microsoft to take control of even the hardware aspect. (Maybe they should put a light ring like the one in front of the X360 on the phone somewhere just to be funny.)

I do like the webOS that the Pre has however I do like the familiarity of the WinMo platform. I would like to see the Zune HD turned into a phone by next year. I think it would be a great competition for Blackberry, Google, and Apple.

I would also like to see Windows make a phone using the Zune HD technology and integrate into a Windows Mobile 6.5 phone of their own. I've always felt that WinMo has gotten heat for being a poor quality OS, but I feel that it's the carriers fault or phones creator for sabotaging a decent OS by putting a bunch of junk on the phone that ties up memory and speed. I think that's why there such a great community built around cooking roms and tweaking phones. When I first got my HTC Touch Pro I liked it, but I thought it ran slower than it should have. After getting a cooked WinMo 6.5 rom I loved the phone. Not because of the interface, but because all of the AT&T java trash and unnecessary software was off of it. The phone ran faster, the accelerometer responded quicker, programs started faster, and the phone booted to the today screen faster.

I'd think it would be good so Windows will perhaps start to invest in a Palm/netbook OS!
Windows 7 tries to be too many things at the same time!

Windows should create an ultra light Os for these devices, and if it works on a desktop, you bet you, I'll be the first to buy it!

Despite the many advances in 7, I still see no real benefit over XP. My battery life still suffers in 7 compared to XP, and the response is still slower on slow laptops than with XP.
No reasons to do the switch I find.
I just hope Ms will get off their a$$e$, and finally build something good and cheap for those netbooks (and PDA's/cellphones)!

thank god, no more winmo!

After two years of relying on Windows Mobile I consider it to be a worse than mediocre offering. Things that would be simple on Windows XP were beyond convoluted on Windows Mobile (version 5, version 6, etc.)Microsoft makes a lot of decent to good products - Windows Mobile isn't one of them.

ahhh, i call bs on all the people who say winmo isn't a good platform. it does everything and more. you want a pretty gui, you can get one, you want software, there's tons. a good browser, check out skyfire, i'm not just a fanboi.....it's the truth. winmo out the bax can be a lackluster experience but throw a few apps at it and it can be great.

Palm does make sense ditching winmo though, if they have their own OS why pay MS? just makes good business sense imho

I personally like the windows mobile platform. i just got the htc touch pro 2 and have to say that the skinning job they did on it shows how far companies can go for balancing out looks and performance. plus the messaging system on this phone is really cool. although it is understandable why palm has decided to move away from WinMo, and i had an old palm from 2003 there OS was great then which made no sense why they even moved to WinMO in the first place. moving back to there own OS would make them unique again and that's what a lot of people want.

With Microsoft struggling to regain support for Windows Mobile in the highly competitive mobile landscape I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually did enter the hardware business. They pushed their partners aside and launched the Zune. They have the Xbox hardware business as well, and are also one of the largest peripheral companies.

If Microsoft made their own Windows Phone (as their branding strategies have pointed out) would you buy it? They would have to have a VERY compelling argument to sway users.

i love the Palm Centro Pro with winmo 6... very nice fone and i prefer the ease of getting our users connected to exchange with it.

WinMo is the only way to go, too bad. My modified Omnia still kicks any Palm's devices ass!

Linux & WebOS > Windows mobile 6

Windows mobile 6 is soooooooo slow !

I just hated the choppyness of my winmo phone, hopefully 6.5 or newer version of the OS will fix this problem. Otherwise, I'll also give up hope on winmo phones and switch to something sleeker like the android or the htc sense platform.

Good! Just more incentive for Microsoft to make a Zune HD phone

^Exactly but they better make it good.

I still stand behind until they get a 3GPP phone (UMTS) Palm is going to have financial troubles... who in their right mind would transfer to a CDMA network with no global roaming options... maybe someone that does not travel but that is not anyone in business. But not releasing any new Windows Mobile devices makes complete sense...they have their own, my pay someone else

they should have jump in with the android bandwagon
the more the merrier...

Funny article if you read WebOS fonetly in spanishs, its sound like “huevos” and huevos mean eggs

I'd prefer its on WebOS. The problem with using a third party OS is that there can be compatibility bugs you just can't work out without going back to the developer. Which means time and waiting. That, or you can go and change your hardware.

Its simply much easier to control both pieces in terms of overall quality control. Ask any computer technician: people rarely see a difference between software and hardware bugs/damage, they just want it fixed or working the way they thought it should.

I've had my Palm Pre for about two months now. I absolutely love it. Besides a few little annoyances, it is a fantastic OS. The annoyances can be easily fixed by Palm in the future, and most can be fixed right now in the home-brew community. WebOS is light years ahead of PalmOS, and is infinitely more stable than WinMo. I think Palm set out to copy the iPhone, succeeded and then one upped Apple. With the app catalog growing as fast as it is (would have to say 75 to 100 official apps and over 250 if you include home-brew apps and that isn't counting the Linux apps), I am hoping people will start embarrassing it as they do Black Berry and the iPhone.

This may actually hurt Palm in the corporate arena. WebOS does not support Exchange very well. That's a deal breaker for many companies I know. There is no mobile OS that pairs with Exchange like WiMo.