Palm to Develop Exclusive OS... Again!

Continuing a longstanding trend with Palm, the company announced this morning that it's working on its own LINUX-BASED OPERATING SYSTEM to power the company's Treo and future smartphones. What trend am I referring to? I'll quote myself from a recent Computerworld column called "The Decline and Fall of the Palm Empire":

"Palm merges with another company only later to be spun off. The company ignores the founders' direction, only to later acquire their start-up and take up its direction. Palm spins out the software division only later to buy back the rights to it. Palm gives up the Palm trademark only to later buy it back."

Now we can add to this series of items the following: "Palm spins off its exclusive, home-built operating system only to later create a new one." Sigh! Palm could have been such a great company.