Don't expect to see smartphones built on Linux-based follow up to the much-loved but ancient Palm platform until the middle of 2009, at the earliest.

Palm's been working on a follow up to the ancient Palm OS, still used in such smartphones as Centro, for years now. The last we heard from the struggling company, the first devices to run on this platform - referred to as Nova and Palm OS II (based on Linux) – were to ship during the beginning of 2009. Apparently, this won't be the case after all.

During a conference call with analysts last week, Palm CEO Ed Colligan changed Palm's tune a little, asserting we’d see the first Palm OS II device during the first half of next year, making mid-year a probability and later than that a probability.

You'd think Palm would be getting its next-gen OS development into high gear, considering the rash of Linux-based platforms starting to make their way into consumers’ hands—most notably, of course, Google and the Open Handset Alliances (OHA) Android platform.

This week, the first Android-powered handset - the Dream (built by HTC for T-Mobile) is expected to be officially launched. Rumor has it T-Mobile sell this smartphone for about $200

And while the excitement surrounding Android is dwarfed by the iPhone, it is still far greater than anything that's surrounded anything Palm has done in years. Actually, it’s second only to the iPhone.

One analyst firm even predicts that Android will account for 400,000 of the 10.5 million smartphones shipped in the U.S. next quarter. That's 4 percent of the market. Pretty impressive considering the first Android handset hasn't even been officially announced yet.

Perhaps Palm should consider putting its proprietary OS dreams in a draw and join the OHA? After all, aside from the iPhone and RIM BlackBerry (a pair of giants in the smartphone world of course), the trend's been towards opening up mobile phones and platforms.

That's what the OHA with Android and competitors like LiMO are all about. And is one reason why folks find Linux - open source, really - so exciting.

By going open source OHA asserts Android will make it easier and less costly to develop applications for mobile phones—by removing the often complicated pre-qualification regimens and hoops mobile operators make developers jump through today—while giving these wireless carriers and phone manufacturers a great deal more flexibility in the devices the former supports and the latter creates.

In theory, all of this (more freedom, less cost, greater flexibility) should be experienced by consumers as a result of Android as well. By making more advanced cell phones, smartphones and (even) applications cheaper to buy and easier to use, and giving consumers a greater say in the mobile handset they choose to buy and use on their carrier's wireless network.

Then there's Nokia's purchase of Symbian and its plans to open that platform up. It has created the Symbian Foundation to basically do for the the world's most-used smartphone OS what Google and the OHA is trying to do with Android.

Current Symbian licensing fees will be replaced by a royalty-free license for all members of the Foundation, which is open to all organizations. Selected components will be available at launch with, Nokia says, a complete mobile software offering to be developed over the next two years.

The question is: Will Palm, which has seen its market share sink, put all its resources at what it’s historically done best – built devices - and leave the platform – as it does with Windows Mobile – to others. After all, ACCESS, which has integrated PalmSource, the Palm spinoff that was responsible for the Palm OS to begin with, is having trouble getting its already completed Linux OS, the Access Linux Platform, accepted.