All the Palm sites have been buzzing the last few days over the recently leaked photos and videos of the new "Treo 670" which seems to run Windows Mobile. We've seen three grainy cell phone videos and several still photos of this device, and I have to say they look real enough to me. That is, the device looks real. I'm still not convinced about the operating system.

Let's talk about the hardware first. This is definitely not any Treo we've ever seen before. The buttons and directional pad are more angular, the shape of the speaker grille on the back is different, the headphone jack and microphone hole have moved. Personally, I like the new angular look. If you noticed the design aesthetic of the new Chryslers and the new Mustang, you'll notice that angular is the new round. Angles are back in. This device looks sharp and professional, and as long as the keys are still domed (pyramided?), for easy typing, I don't mind this change. While it shares the removable battery used by the Treo 650, the release button looks a little different. And while the videos aren't clear, the side buttons appear to be either more recessed than on the 650 or not there at all. This is a new Treo, or a very old one (early prototype of the 650?).

Are the videos real or a hoax? You can make a good argument either way, making this the most intriguing UHO yet (Unidentified Handheld Object). Again, the videos and stills are low resolution and blurry, so none of this is definitive. In the videos, we see what appears to be a Treo booting up and running through a series of Windows Mobile screens. At no time do we see the user interact with the screen directly, using a stylus. Some observers have taken this as an indication that the video is a hoax. We've seen video "proof" before that turned out to be a real Palm running a full screen video capture of a Pocket PC screen. Might this be the same, a Treo running Core Player and showing video from an HP 6500?

Not necessarily. The device appears to be running Windows Mobile 5.0. One of the key enhancements in 5.0 is vastly improved one-handed navigation, code borrowed from Windows Mobile Smartphone Edition, which lacks a touch screen at all. It would be quite possible for someone to do everything seen in the videos on a Windows Mobile 5.0 device using only the d-pad and the keyboard, just like one could on a Treo running Garnet. And in the videos, the d-pad and keyboard are often cropped out of the shot, so we don't see what's going on down there. So this is inconclusive.

In one shot, we clearly see a key guard dialog asking the user to press the Calendar button to unlock the device. This dialog looks very similar to the one on the Treo 650, with the same rounded Palm OS borders (props to Tyler and James on the Palm Addicts Podcast for this). Another tip-off that it's a fake?

Maybe not. In Windows Mobile devices, any key guard functionality is left up to the device manufacturer; it's not provided by Microsoft. HP and Fujitsu have to write their own key guard code, so it follows that Palm would have to as well. And if that is indeed the case, it's not unreasonable to assume it would look much like the ARM-native key guard software on the other Treos. Plus, the key guard here doesn't look exactly like the one on the Treo 650. It also includes the time, a nice little addition.

Let's talk screen size. Windows Mobile doesn't support 320x320 displays. A Windows Mobile Treo would have to run either 240x240, like the HP 6500, or 480x480. Given the expense required to make a near-laser-printer-quality 250 dpi screen that would cram 480x480 into the same dimensions as the current Treo screen, I think we can discount that for now. A Windows Mobile Treo will almost certainly use a 240x240 pixel screen, just like HP's Treo clone. The icons and text in the videos certainly looked like the same Tahoma at 240 pixels across that I remember so well from my three years using Windows Mobile devices, but again, if the video was taken on the HP and played back scaled to full screen on a 320x320 Palm OS Treo, wouldn't it still look like 240x240?

In short, the videos are ultimately inconclusive. Personally, I'm convinced the hardware is real. I'm also convinced that PalmOne under Todd Bradley did at least look into making a Windows Mobile Treo. I'm not sure if the project is still active, and I'm not sure Palm, Inc. under Ed Colligan would release a Windows Mobile Treo.

But what if it is real? What impact would a Windows Mobile Treo have?

In the short term, it will make Palm a lot of money. I can totally understand why Bradley wanted to do this. The Treo is still the best designed smartphone on the market, often imitated but never equaled. The only problem with the Treo is that some large IT departments prefer to go with RIM's Blackberry or Windows Mobile because those platforms historically integrate better into enterprise networks. Marry the Treo design and brand to Windows Mobile and Exchange, and you have guaranteed winner, right?

For a while, yes. But here's what worries me. American companies don't have a strong track record for taking the long view. Most companies are only worried about the next quarter, or at the most, the next twelve months. In that time frame a Windows Mobile Treo would be great for Palm. It's only after that that a Windows Mobile Treo will kill Palm.

Why would a successful product kill the company? Because you never bet the farm on one design. If what was successful always stayed successful, Ford would still be selling Model Ts. Eventually someone else will come up with a better design, something more in line with the changing nature of mobile technology. And when they do, Palm becomes just another Windows Mobile licensee, but without the economies of scale found at Dell, HP and Samsung. Forced to compete with Dell on Dell's terms, the cost of components alone will eat Palm alive. They simply cannot build the same device as cheaply as Dell can.

But a Windows Mobile Treo might erode Palm's business long before that. A Windows Mobile Treo would lose much of what makes it a Treo. A Windows Mobile Treo loses the distinctive user experience of Palm OS. While I'm sure Windows Mobile 5.0 is an improvement, it's still not as elegant from a user perspective as Palm OS, something many Windows Mobile fans simply don't understand, having never really used a Palm. A Treo running Windows Mobile will destroy Palm for largely the same reason that moving to Intel chips won't destroy Apple. It's not about the hardware, really. It's about the experience.

When people can buy Centrino-based Mac minis, they'll still look and feel like Macs. They'll still have the distinctive Mac OS X interface, and people that prefer that to XP's Luna interface or Vista 's Aero will continue to prefer that. But other than the shape of the casing and price, what's really all that different between a Windows Mobile Treo, the HP 6500 and the Motorola Q? (well, the Q lacks a touch screen, but you see my point) While a Windows Mobile Treo would make money in the short term, in the long run it makes Palm into a "me too" player who can't keep up with the big boys.

Of course, offering a single Windows Mobile version of the Treo doesn't mean Palm has to completely abandon Palm OS. In fact, even if the Windows Mobile Treo 700 does materialize, I expect the vast majority of Palm's line to continue to use Palm OS. This could just be a single trial balloon to see how much users really prefer Palm OS compared to Windows Mobile in the same hardware. But what I find really interesting is that the source of these Windows Mobile videos and stills claims that he'll have a chance to play around with the other Treo 700 this week. The one that runs Palm OS Cobalt .

Could Palm really have two new Treo 700s up their sleeve? This picture seems to indicate just that. The two devices look similar, but look closely. The Treo on the left has no coloring for the phone keypad, but more importantly, the buttons clearly show Palm OS icons. The top two buttons are home and menu, and the four below them are the same Call, Calendar, Messaging and End found on the Treo 650. On the device on the right, the top two buttons, are blank, as smart buttons on a Windows Mobile phone would be. Also blank are the buttons that would be Calendar and Messaging on a Palm OS Treo. In one of the videos, we saw those same two buttons light up blue with a Windows flag and a round OK button, choices that make sense for a Windows Mobile phone (though it does call into question the reference to the "Calendar" button in the key guard dialog).

If this source, known only as "roc a fella," is correct, the device on the left in the photo, showing the HTC boot screen (the Treo 650 is also manufactured by HTC) is actually running Cobalt. So if these rumors bear out (and there's a lot of "ifs" in this article), we're looking at three Treos on the market by next spring, ignoring the carrier variations:

·          Treo 650 running Garnet, replacing the 600 as the "low end" Treo

·          Treo 700 running Cobalt with a 320x320 pixel screen

·          Treo 700 running Windows Mobile with a 240x240 pixel screen

Will Palm really do this? Would they really want to support three different operating systems simultaneously? And if this happens, which will you buy?