This week, PDA and smartphone maker Palm announced a deal with BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIM) that will result in Palm Treo devices running the BlackBerry OS and services. The move establishes Palm as more of a device maker and positions the company better with corporations, which have been more inclined to pursue Windows Mobile and BlackBerry devices than Palm OS-powered devices, because of those systems' more readily available connectivity with back-end messaging servers. BlackBerry devices, especially, are well known for their wireless-email capabilities. As for RIM, the company is now moving toward a model in which it focuses more on software and services, as it ports its BlackBerry software to devices made by other companies. It will be interesting to see which does better in the market: Palm's Windows Mobile-powered Treo or Palm's BlackBerry-powered Treo. My money is on the BlackBerry
