Windows Phone Thoughts: The Road To The Windows Mobile Powered Treo 700w

• November 10, 2004: PalmOne begins to back off of any OS6 device commitment. "Nobody knows when we'll start the shift to Cobalt, OS 6, or on which devices," Mr. Colligan said. "For now, we're saying that we've built the functionality we need into the Treo and the Tungsten T5 and there's no need to confuse developers by switching. I'm not even prepared to commit us to a change next year, or the year after, at this stage." Or, ever it would seem.

• November 26, 2004: Rumors of Dell seeking a Windows Mobile Treo crop up. Of all of the Windows Mobile Treo rumors, this is the one I gave the least credence to, but it is an interesting hypothesis. Still no PalmOS Cobalt devices.

• December 15, 2004: First rumors of Windows Mobile square screened devices start to flow. Of course, this capability was first made available in Windows Mobile 2003SE but no devices had yet made use of it. It was a central feature of Windows Mobile 5, what was known as Magneto back then. I saw mockups of this sort if thing back in February 2004 and was very excited about it. Sure, you have less screen real estate to work with, but for reading emails and sending replies, having the QWERTY keyboard built in is just a no brainer. The iPAQ 4300 showed it was ridiculous to put that into a 320X240 screen as the device length rivaled that of modern DVD remote controls. The success of the RIM Blackberry and Palm Treo with this type of short screen and keyboard input was instrumental in Microsoft's decision to go this route. It paved the way for a Windows Mobile Treo.

• February 7, 2005: PalmOne released the Treo 650, the most successful Treo to date, and it included the ActiveSync conduit directly to Exchange 2003. The device had limits though, coming with only 23MB of RAM and the inability to use any WiFi SDIO cards to date and instead of being able to play WAV files for ring tones, you are limited to polyphonic ring tones. That said though, it got rave reviews and has been a successful device. Microsoft has no competition for it. At the time though, HP must have been deep in development of the iPAQ 6500 and 6700 line of Messengers. Oh yeah, Samsung backed out of PalmOS devices, abandoning the i550 as Sprint seems focused on non-PalmOS platforms, though Sprint protested that interpretation at the time of the press release. Except for the Treo, they have moved to Windows Mobile for their top of the line devices.

• March 14, 2005: Engadget releases spy photos of the Windows Mobile Treo. It is made by HTC and I think for the first time, is given the Treo 670 moniker.



• April 26, 2005: Gartner declares the mobile OS war over and doesn't even mention PalmOS as a serious contender. This has to bolster the decision by PalmOne to bring a Windows Mobile Treo to market.

• May 9, 2005: PalmOne scrambles to save hardware line by releasing a "Mobile Manager." Yeah, it has a hard drive, and that is cool, but other than that, it doesn't do anything Windows Mobile hasn't been able to do since 2000 with the first iPAQ and in fact, does less because it still cannot multitask.


PalmOne tries to show it is still relevant with a misguided device: It isn't the hardware that is the problem, and PalmOne knows this. By the way, Windows Mobile 5 now supports hard drives and gigs of internal flash storage with its persistent storage model. You think Palm doesn't have a next generation Mobile Manager in the lab with Windows Mobile on it? Think again. No sign of a Palm OS 6 Cobalt Mobile Manager anywhere.