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palmOne traveling down the path towards a Windows Mobile device seems heretical. Yet that is precisely what rumors from the last few months indicate could happen soon.

Most recently, a writer at newswireless.net reported he saw not just a Windows Mobile Treo 650, but a Treo running the as-of-yet unreleased 2005 version of Microsoft's handheld operating system.

Here’s what happened:

A high-ranking executive for European carrier Orange took out a Treo 650 at a table with several other people in the Landmark Hotel in London.

Innocent enough.

When he turned the smartphone on, however, it quickly became evident that the communicator wasn't running the Palm platform, but Windows Mobile instead.

The Orange official quickly put the device away before anyone could take a picture of the smartphone with his or her own camera phone.

This Incident, if true, adds some credence to the near constant rumors circulating since last Fall that the handheld pioneer plans to create a Microsoft-based smartphone for Dell or itself.

In addition, an analyst at Needham & Co. asserted—at about the same time these reports started—that palmOne admitted to him that the company would build a line of Windows Mobile Treos.

Although palmOne has denied specific reports of Windows Mobile Treos, the company has publicly admitted to being open to evaluating other platforms for its devices to address the desires of customers and the marketplace.

Why not?
Palm vendors can theoretically use the same hardware to support other mobile platforms because today's Palm OS PDAs and smartphones run on ARM processors.

And since palmOne split from PalmSource and is a hardware only vendor now, the company is free to pursue alternative operating systems to create more appealing products, help the bottom line, and please shareholders.

With the mobile market rapidly moving from PDAs to smartphones, it may be in the company's interest to boost the number of platforms supported by its handsets to attract the widest range of consumers and (just as importantly) wireless carriers.

Samsung utilizes such a strategy by distributing Palm, Windows Mobile, and Symbian smartphones, in addition to its high-end feature phones and everyday cell phones.