I can't possibly imagine how unhappy Access Japan would be if such an alliance came to pass! Access would be left with the Access Linux Platform but no devices to put it on unless they can find a willing manufacturer in China (always a possibility). But with all the open source alternatives, why would any manufacturer want to licence a closed source OS from Access... crikey that would be funny if it happened!!

A Palm/Nokia/Maemo partnership could very well be benefitial for Maemo by getting Maemo on more devices along with hopefully more developers, assuming of course that the existing owners and developers aren't alienated by the new change of platform. However if this were to happen, Nokia would need to get the hardware abstraction side of things sorted out pretty quickly in Maemo - I'm sure we can all do without multiple incompatible versions of the OS each running on a slightly different but largely similar hardware base...

Palm owners and developers do seem pretty dedicated judging by how long they have been waiting patiently for Cobalt (and now Access Linux Platform) to arrive, which seems like for ages. However Palm changing it's platform direction yet again may be one change of direction too far - perhaps the involvement of Nokia could sweeten the pill considerably (i.e. give Palm some credibility at long last).

A partnership centered on Maemo I'd like to see!