Palms dumps Windows Mobile as losses increase

Palm has said that it will be dropping the Windows Mobile operating system in favour of its own webOS platform.

Speaking at its quarterly earnings conference call Palm’s chief executive said that the company was going to focus exclusively on the webOS platform that is behind its Pre and Pixi handsets.

“We're launching more great Palm webOS products with more carriers, and turning our sights toward growth," said Jon Rubinstein, chairman and chief executive officer.

"We're making significant progress with Palm's transformation, and our culture of innovation is stronger than ever.

Rubinstein said that the company was seeing stronger than expected demand from the business community for its Pre device. The news will be a blow to Microsoft, which is losing support for its mobile platform, one of whose key selling points was its appeal to enterprise managers.

Palm’s quarterly results were however disappointing. The company posted its eighth successive quarterly loss, and this quarter it lost US$164.5 million, compared to being US$41.9 million in the red this time last year.

The company reported 823,000 sales of smartphones, up 134 per cent on the last quarter, largely because buyers held off from purchases while waiting for the Pre. However, year on year sales were down 30 per cent.

The next quarter is going to be crucial for Palm’s future. The fourth quarter of the year is the strongest time for handset sales but Palm is facing stiff competition from the iPhone, as well as from new Android handseta from Motorola and LG.