Inventec Appliances had landed orders from Palm for the manufacture of its Palm Treo 500v smartphones, according to sources in the Taiwan handset industry. Palm launched the new smartphone in Europe this week.
The WCDMA-compliant Treo 500v is Palm's first 3G phone supporting Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6 OS, the sources noted.
Inventec's last order from Palm, received in the fourth quarter of 2006, called for the production of the 2G Treo 680, which was running on Palm OS, the sources indicated.
Palm's outsourcing of the production of the Treo 500v to Inventec indicates that the US smartphone vendor is moving away from its previous supplier High Tech Computer (HTC), which now focuses on sales of own-brand products, said the sources.
Meanwhile, the sources also speculated that Palm might suspend its plans to launch a Linux-based smartphone after the company said early this month that it has decided to put an end to the much-maligned 'Foleo' smartphone companion project, in order to focus on its core products.
[via: Digitimes]