Back in Feb 2004, Newswireless confirmed the existence of the Windows Mobile powered Palm Treo. This week such a beast was announced. Now the site is reporting that "Palm engineers have built a Symbian based Treo, and samples have now been seen in the hands of phone company executives." What's stopping them? Surprisingly Nokia laying claim to some "core Symbian code, which Nokia says belongs to Nokia." Ouch.

Of course there are two immediate questions if the above is true (and while that caveat is in force, we've no reason here to doubt the source). Firstly what exactly have Palm signed with Symbian and UIQ to gain access to Symbian OS to allow them to run a testbed version of the OS on a Treo? And secondly, if Symbian OS is as open to new customers as it appears to be, why would Nokia block a new licencee?

Of course Ed Colligan (flanked by Bill Gates) denied that Palm would work with any other Operating Systems beyond Palm OS and Windows Mobile...