Monday, September 26, 2005

Bajarin: Palm's New Treo Now a Windows Mobile Smart Phone

Tim Bajarin at Creative Strategies posts his thoughts at Technology Pundits on why the new Windows powered Treo is good for Palm, Microsoft and the enterprise. Bajarin notes that although the "Palm OS is a great OS, the fact that it did not have strong IT support in enterprise markets, especially when Microsoft’s Exchange architecture was at the center of an IT deal, this move now assures Palm that their Treo with Windows Mobile can get a piece of this business as well."

He thinks the partnership means serious competition for Dell and HP, who will need to do a lot of catch up to match the Treo's look and feel as well as one-handed usage. He also thought it wouldn't spell the end of the PalmOS. "The Palm OS will most likely be optimized for use in more consumer oriented devices, and especially the PDA’s Palm is making for the consumer and SMB markets where the need for Windows Mobile support for back end architectures is not an issue," he said.

Bajarin concludes that "the move by Palm to include a Windows Mobile 5.0 based Treo in their line is good news for Palm, Microsoft and IT customers everywhere and can only help grow the entire smart phone market in the future."