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palmOne to use symbian? that'd be cool

i gotta be honest. i don't like the Palm OS at all. i say this having owned every generation of palm, handspring, pda, treo, whatever since my very first palm 5000, which i think was actually called the "US Robotics Pilot".

(this statement reminds me of the guy on vh1 on one of their "top 100 worst movies of all time" specials who said "Showgirls was the worst movie i ever saw. i hated it the first time i saw it, i hated it the second time i saw it, and i sure as hell hated it the third and fourth times i saw it" - aw...but i digress again)

why? it's clumsy, buggy, seemingly single-tasking, and allthough it's getting better version to version, adding a phone to the OS always seems like a bolt-on. no!, i didn't say strap-on. get your mind out of the gutter. there's a reason there's an exposed reset button on the back of the palm, and a stylus that unscrews to reset it.

but there's a lot of great apps that i like on the palm, and most palm users i know can't live without their palm apps, and the desktop sync that's so much more robust than anything else out there.

there sure is a demand for palm phones. ATT wireless is sold out of Treo 600s, and all the backordered units i am told will ONLY go to new account activations. i've only met one Treo 600 owner who didn't absolutely love the device.

with that in mind - i've often wondered why no symbian licensee has created a device with a palm's form factor to compete against palm here in the states, and why symbian hasn't attacked palm head on. ever.

so i think this article in "el reg" is pretty interesting, and i think is a sign of better things to come from palmOne, if they can figure out how not to maroon their huge user base in north america. oh wait, maybe *that's* what palmSource is for!