Bye-Bye PalmOS?

For those of us who have invested in the Palm platform (I have a Kyocera 7135, myself), there is a commentary piece over at PalmInfoCenter which is disturbing at best. It looks at many of the moves made by PalmOne (the hardware company that makes Palm-branded PDAs) and PalmSource (the software company that makes the PalmOS) and makes a bold claim: the PalmOS is dead and in the future "Palm" will be a brand of software running on all platforms, NOT an operating system

PalmSource, seeing its demise looming ahead of it, entered NASA mode: Think cheap, small, and fast. There is nothing cheaper, smaller, or faster for small devices than variants of Linux -- when it is done correctly. PalmSource apparently believes it has found the cheapest, smallest, and fastest variant of Linux and will make Cobalt and its associated apps a skin (yes, this is what it amounts to!) over this kernal....But what PalmSource has not said and will not say -- but I will say -- is this: They have basically stated in very smooth and camouflaged tones that the operating system no longer matters to them. They intend to mint their coin in the following ways:
I. Porting the widely-known PalmOS GUI to other platforms
II. Porting the widely-known PalmOS apps to other platforms
III. Making the Palm Desktop a direct competitor to MS Outlook

I really need to look into the charges the writer makes about Cobalt (i.e. PalmOS 6). But this is bad news for me. I was about ready to upgrade to the Treo 600 or Treo 650 Smartphones. Now, I am more likely to stick with my PalmOS 4.1 handheld and see what the future really holds. This is the eternal quandry of the tech industry - keep innovating to stay competitive, but don't be too innovative or customers stop buying this generation of hardware while waiting for the next generation.