Just because a company is called palmOne, it doesn’t mean it is exclusively tied to using the mobile platform it invented for its handhelds and smartphones. While the thought of the PDA company implementing another operating system in its devices may come as a shock, or even seem heretical, it shouldn't—especially since it separated from PalmSource, the arm of the company in charge of developing the Palm platform, over a year ago.

As a hardware only vendor, palmOne is free to pursue any avenue it wants—including alternative operating systems—to create more appealing products, help the bottom line, and make shareholders happy.

And with the mobile market moving increasingly from PDAs to smartphones, it may be in palmOne's interest to boost the number of platforms supported by its handsets to attract the widest range of people and, just as importantly, wireless carriers. Samsung uses such a strategy, delivering Palm, Windows Mobile, and Symbian-based smartphones to mobile operators and consumers.

Narrow Yet Wider Focus
palmOne still sells some of the most popular PDAs around. Nevertheless, with the changing marketplace, the success of the Treo 600—the most sort after smartphone in the United States—and the recent release of the Treo 650, it is clear that the company plans to focus more on mobile handsets going forward, adding fuel to the rumors about a new multi-platform approach.

In fact, various rumblings from within the company for close to a year have supported the rumors about the company expanding to other operating systems for future smartphones. For instance, palmOne’s European head Vesey Crichton suggested to the Swedish publication Allt om Handdatorer back in January that the Palm operating system is "not viewed internally as a religion."

One scenario has palmOne coming out with smartphones in multiple platforms so as to push devices with certain operating systems in specific markets where they'll perform best. Take Europe, for example, where the Symbian platform is used in the lion's share of smartphones.

Windows Mobile and Palm handsets, in particular, sell in far fewer quantities on that continent. Should palmOne decide to create a Symbian smartphone for the European market, then it would benefit from the brand recognition that comes with the palmOne name while offering a product that is more in line with what European consumer want—a Symbian-based phone.

Palm Meets Dell?
The most recent rumor has palmOne creating a Windows Mobile smartphone for Dell. While Dell is noticeably absent from the smartphone market, rival Hewlett-Packard made a big splash a few months back with its first cellular-handheld, the iPAQ hh315.

A deal between palmOne and Dell could be similar to the one where IBM sold branded versions of Palm's handhelds a few years back. Except, instead of offering Palm-based devices, Dell would deliver Microsoft-based handsets.

According to these rumors, the palmOne smartphone developed for Dell would be a Windows Mobile version of the Treo—keeping the form factor that made the Treo so popular while adding an operating system that may appeal more to Dell’s business customers, who prefer Microsoft-based products, such as the computer giant’s popular Axim line of Windows Mobile Pocket PCs.

A Dell deal would also reduce the risk of palmOne customer confusion by giving the company an outlet for its devices that are not based on the Palm operating system. The sharing of development costs with the much larger company could also relieve the financial burden.

Should the rumors be true, Dell—no stranger to looking to outside developers for its handhelds—would most likely sell the Windows Mobile Treo under a different name. Perhaps, it would use a moniker more in line with its Axim series of Pocket PCs, which were created by Taiwanese OEM HTC.

Wider Selection
Whatever palmOne does, if it wants to thrive, it must take a more aggressive approach by increasing the number of handsets it produces beyond one per year, while also developing products that would appeal to a wider audience, not just high-end and business users.

Sure, the Treo 600,and the Treo 650 are marvels of design, striking the best balance between the power of a PDA and the cellular capabilities of cell phone among all the smartphones we’ve seen. Even so, the success Treo experienced in the U.S. hasn't been replicated in the largest Asian and European markets.

As for Asia, palmOne suffered a setback recently by the --at least temporary-- withdrawal from China—leaving the most populous country in the world to local vendors, such as Group Sense PDA, which recently released its third Palm-based smartphone, the Xplore M28.