Palm will switch to Windows Mobile on next Treo version

It’s the end of an era. One of the most successful smartphones ever, the Palm Treo, will switch, on its next version, to the Microsoft Windows Mobile operating system instead of the Palm OS.

I really like Palm. I used to own a Palm Pilot III and today I own a Palm Tungsten T. It is well known that the Palm company has gone through a lot of changes and restructuring over the past few years and made quite a lot of mistakes along the way. But this is a real shame. Palm OS is a good, solid, user-friendly, oriented towards simplicity while saving battery life operating system.

Microsoft is, of course, celebrating the event. On Microsoft’s homepage you can see this image. All that they have left to do is a victory dance, then buy Palm and fire all of the employees.

I wonder what the Treo with Windows Mobile will have to offer that other Windows-based smartphones don’t already have. It better be good.