Will Microsoft Mobile eventually rule over Palm OS?

Palm recently announced a working relationship with Microsoft. Does that mean that Palm OS will phase out? Obviously Palm claims that is not the case, but does it make sense to focus on two operating systems?

Will Microsoft Mobile eventually rule over Palm OS?microsoft

Simply no. It's just like Mac OS X and Windows, there is plenty of room in the market for 2 or more handheld operating systems. There was rumour of the decline of Palm as they are bringing out a windows based treo but this is not as a replacement but an alternative to give consumers more choice. Palm recently renewed it's licence contract for the OS until 2010 so it's safe at least till then.

Will Microsoft Mobile eventually rule over Palm OS?norton ghost

Yes, it will. I have a Palm Zire 72 that I'm delighted with -- it has everything I want including a camera and MP3 player. But I can see that it's lacking many features of a real operating system. For example, font support is weak -- each program has its own fonts -- and it won't synch with Windows Media Player (or iTunes for that matter).

It's true that the average user doesn't care about font support, but eventually weaknesses in the underlying operating system will affect the functions that users care about, and that will be the beginning of the end for the Palm OS.

Microsoft has a tremendous ability to use differences in functionality to hammer competitors. For example, one effect of the PlaysForSure program (which has both a technical and a marketing component) is to drain market share away from non-compliant MP3 players like Palm PDAs.