The rest of 2008 for Palm - anything good for Palm OS fans?

[From Chris2] So the GSM Centro has come and gone - so what can we expect for the rest of 2008 from our favourite gadget company? WinMob fans can look forward to the 800w (and all the hardware goodies it promises), and maybe even a revamped 500w with a touchscreen... But what about good old Palm OS?

It looks like we're going to get the Centro in all the colours all of the Treos have ever been available in... Is that it? No talk of a Treo|X or Centro|X? Is the 32GB HSDPA/GPS iPhone going to be announced without a peep out of Sunnyvale? But let's say come June and Palm DOES announce the abovementioned Treo|X and/or Centro|X - will that be enough? Will the fans say - "you had a year to develop your answer to the iPhone... AND THIS IS IT???" The choice of hardware under FrankenGarnet is limited to say the least... You'll either have a GSM/CDMA HiRes+ device with or without a keyboard, or a WiFi one... But not both... But isn't that enough? A new HiRes+ device with WiFi, even under a Treo badge will go a long way to stop the Palm fanatics from jumping ship to the iPod Touch. And market it the right way, and then you have an iPod Touch killer on your hands... The same for the CDMA/GSM version - it's a fully fledged widescreen phone/internet device that fits in your pocket.

And the same way that iPod Touch owners are eventually upgrading to an iPhone, you will have an upgrade path in a year's time to a Palm OS7 "Nova" device, with all the bells and whistles WinMob, BB, S60 and Apple devices have now. So it looks to me a way for Palm to keep SOME of its long time customers at least is to release one more PDA/PND/Media player type device this year - sooner rather than later, and then follow it up with an improved version in 2009 with Nova and all the rest...

Just my 2c (or 0.26c according to the lates Dollar/SA Rand exchange rate!) from the capitol city of South Africa...