At a press conference today in San Francisco, Ed Colligan of Palm announced that his company will release a Treo smartphone based on the Windows Mobile operating system. It will ship exclusively on the Verizon Wireless network, and especially its EV-DO data network.

Denny Strigl from Verizon Wireless implied that the Windows Mobile Treo will not be shipped until "next year"-- meaning 2006. Ed Colligan from Palm clarified this by saying "early next year".

Ed Colligan said that the handset has not been named at this time. He called it "Treo on Windows".

A marketing person from Palm said that the handset had an Intel mobile processor and ran on Windows Mobile 5.0, but said that there would be no further discussion of hardware specifications. Seems like the shipment of this product is still sometime away.

Ed Colligan said that a Treo based on Windows Mobile for EDGE or HSDPA will not be released until the middle of 2006 at the earliest.

Bill Gates, Ed Colligan, and Denny Strigl started receiving calls and SMS messages during the Q&A as a result of the numbers for their handsets being displayed on the projection screen during the demonstration.

Technorati Tags: Treo 700w, Windows Mobile