Palm plan to denote a young character of nomadic twist on Wednesday , as it proceed its product - line transition from simple personal digital assistants ( PDAs ) to more advanced smartphones .
Consumer electronics vendors are rushing to develop handsets that offer mobile e - mail and Internet browsing instead of just calendars and contact lists . Apple added fuel to this fire in January when chief executive officer Steve Jobs announced he would launch the iPhone in June , combining the iPod music player with a digital television camera , smartphone and touchscreen display .
Now Palm is tell industry security guard that founder Jeff Hawkins will unveil the new gimmick during his talk at a trade show in Carlsbad , Calif. , calledD : All Things Digital .
Palm is keeping restrained about the point , even turn down to brief industriousness analysts forwards of the announcement . But one opening is the Linux - base smartphone that Palm CEO Ed Colligan has call to release before the destruction of 2007 . Such a gadget would better performance compare to Palm ’s current Treo by execute the Palm OS on top of a Linux heart and soul , Colligan evidence analysts at the company ’s yearly investor day in April .
medallion will also continue to habituate Microsoft ’s Windows Mobile OS . In the PDA segment , vendor used Windows on 62.1 percent of French telephone in the first quarter of 2007 , compared to just 0.7 pct for Linux , allot to Gartner .
By continuing to develop applications on both raceway , Palm hop-skip to win customer by offer them more options with its Treo smartphone than contender like Research in Motion ’s BlackBerry , Motorola ’s Q and Samsung Electronics ’s BlackJack .
Another possibility for Palm is to re - architect its Treo into a more fashionable , consumer - well-disposed gimmick , say analyst Jack Gold , father of the research business firm J. Gold Associates .
“ They are being left behind by the like of BlackBerry and Nokia and Moto as far as machine blueprint fit , ” Gold said . “ I would n’t be surprised to see a new seafaring paradigm , but not too far away form a standard phone . They do n’t want to lose their bread and butter clients , who are mostly business users who want an e - ring mail twist . ”
