Palm no longer matters.

[tourdewolf]

Just read this over at Palminfocenter and thought it was interesting. Not sure if I buy it?
http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_story.asp?ID=7394

[capo]

Palm vs. MS is a familiar story - sounds like Novell vs. MS or Wordperfect vs. Word or... Palm invented the market and owned it. Microsoft entered with a pretty sorry alternative and proceeded to polish and refine while Palm essentially ceased evolving. Now MS owns the lion's share of the market. Don't get me wrong - I'm far from a Microsoft hater, but competition is a good thing for everybody.

[Darius Wey]

Palm was certainly the one to start off the handheld craze, but they failed to meet consumer expectations as the years went by. In our technological age, everything keeps getting better and better, and everyone would like to keep up with technological developments. There's no point in offering year-old technologies in a device when something that is more powerful could be offered at the same time. That's where MS has stepped in with the Pocket PCs. By far, the high-end Pocket PC devices offer much more than Palm's latest high-end offering, and putting money on the expectations that people prefer the newest and best, it's little wonder why MS has taken over and Pocket PCs now dominate the handheld market. Even smartphones - once a myth, have now certainly become a reality and are now widely used in the consumer market.

So to cut a long story short, I'm not surprised that Palm are looking elsewhere to expand their options. They've constrained themselves for far too long to allow any room for growth in the past few years.