Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein reportedly released a memo on Tuesday that seemed to announce a shift from the webOS platform to Android. The memo was supposed to be up on Wikileaks at midnight, which it never was. The important part of the memo reads, “While Palm is incredibly proud of our engineers who spent timeless work and effort to bring us this advanced operating system,consumers simply have not caught on. To provide a better future for ourselves and customers, the only logical choice is to transition our hardware and software to the Android platform.” According to Wired’s Gadget Lab and Engadget, a source inside Palm says that there is no plan to switch to Android and that the company is committed to webOS.

There is no question that Android is hot at the moment. Even Rubinstein said that the DROID’s launch at Verizon before the Pre Plus was one of the reasons why his phone is selling poorly at Big Red. But there are things that Palm can do with its OS. Considering that many analysts who hated the hardware of the two phones love the OS, Palm could license webOS to another company who can make superior handsets. Whatever move Palm makes-and time is running out-dumping their home grown OS for the same software everyone else is using seems unlikely.
source: Slashdot via GadgetLab and Engadget