We saw this before in the 90's
A recent Forbes article reported that Palm has sold out to MS. This has happened once before and isnt good news. So what happened?
Microsoft beat up on Palm the same way it took out many of its competitors in the desktop OS space: by putting pressure on hardware vendors to use its operating system, and offering it at a price they couldn't refuse. "It's typical when a market gets a certain critical mass, that Microsoft comes in and tries to squeeze out the niche players," says Caris & Company analyst Susan Kalla.
The article notes that Microsoft has the patience and billions of dollars in cash to grab a strategic share of the PDA market.
We shouldn't forget that PalmSource is an independent company of Palm and that their PalmOS is being extended to run on top of a Linux kernel, a fascinating move.