Palm readies new smartphone for Europe

A new smartphone is being developed by former PDA champion Palm, in conjunction with Vodafone and Microsoft, the companies said Thursday.

The Treo handset will run on Vodafone’s 3G network with Windows Mobile 5.0 and will be aimed squarely at the enterprise with its push e-mail capability.

The new phone will be available to Vodafone customers in the UK, Germany, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands before the end of the calendar year, Palm said.

Earlier this month Palm was forced to stop shipping its Treo 650 to Europe because the device doesn’t comply with new European Union regulations limiting certain hazardous substances in electronic products.

The move is important for both Palm and Microsoft which are struggling to keep up with Research in Motion’s BlackBerry device and others based on Symbian’s operating system.

Palm recently opened an engineering plant in Dublin in an effort to focus on Europe.