Long-standing rivals Palm, Inc. and Microsoft Corporation have teamed up to produce a new Treo 700 smartphone from Palm. Scheduled to be available in the U.S. in early 2006 from mobile operator Verizon Wireless, the CDMA-based Treo 700 will break with previous Palm devices by using an Intel processor and running Windows Mobile 5.0 as its operating system.
The Treo 700 will offer email, messaging, organizational, and Web browsing software, in addition to standard mobile phone features and mobile versions of Microsoft’s core productivity applications, including Outlook Mobile (with direct support for Exchange 2003 servers), Office Mobile, and Internet Explorer Mobile. The Treo 700 will operate via Verizon’s high speed broadband EV/DO network, which reaches about half the U.S. population in nearly 90 metropolitan areas as well as hundred of airports. Verizon’s BroadbandAccess network offers wireless download speeds of 400 to 700 kbps, putting the Treo 700’s online capabilities on par with many DSL offerings. Verizon has been expanding its BroadbandAccess network since introducing it in second half of 2003.
The Treo 700 could be popular with business travellers and other mobile professionals, combining Palm’s well-regarded hardware design with the widespread ubiquity of Microsoft’s application suites. Both companies hope to compete strongly with Research In Motion‘s Blackberry. Despite virtually inventing the modern PDA market, Palm itself has been struggling, first spinning off its software division (recently acquired by Japan’s Access Co.) and lately devices running Microsoft’s Windows Mobile began outselling devices using the Palm OS. The new Treo 700 puts to rest months of speculation that Palm Inc. was preparing to adopt the Windows platform, although it may be an only child for a while: Palm noted it didn’t expect to release Treo smartphones using Windows Mobile based on other wireless technologies until the second half of 2006.
