In the annals of tech history, September 26 has new importance. It's the day Palm announced that a new version of its popular Treo cell phone will run on a mobile version of Microsoft's Windows instead of the Palm operating system. Palm said it will continue to use the Palm OS, now developed by an independent company, in other products, but analysts took this as a sign that the Palm OS is heading for the margins.
Since the first Palm Pilot debuted in 1996, Palm and Microsoft have been bitter enemies in the handheld market, both in hardware and software. So Palm bringing Windows into its product family is akin to Apple bringing out an iMac running Windows. Why and how this decision was made by Palm executives is the subject of an insightful, multipart package on news.com, and should be of interest to anyone interested in strategy and competitiveness.
The package includes the basic news story of the announcement, a compelling behind-the-scenes look at the secret meetings and other intrigues needed to put the deal together, and an analysis of how Palm lost its once-substantial lead in the PDA market.