I think windows is still going to be a major player for a long time to come; the fact that Palm now sells Windows machines is testament to this. Plus, most of the major companies who are not trying to create their own platform are using windows. I don't find that it sucks, and if companies like HTC keep creating innovative products that use it as a platform, it's not going anywhere. Just look at the Phone Daily website sales rankings for Taiwan and Hong Kong...the windows mobile phones sell, and people buy the upgrades. Their customers are quite loyal.
After saying all of that, I still wouldn't rule Palm out completely, but they need to do some major innovating if they are going to keep up. I live in Hong Kong now, and when I went to several stores to ask about Palm products, EVERYONE frowned. People in Asia don't like Palm, they think it is a thing of the past that was good for PDA's. None of the stores would even show me the phone, though they had it in their display window. The response was similar when I lived in Taiwan. So, if Palm is going to out-do its competitors, it has a long way to go-and it's needs something innovative in a big way to sway the pretty firm opinion here in Asia.
All of these newer platforms are not necessarily the platforms of the future. Blackberry is on its way to establishing itself, but most of these are quite new; the Iphone gets many complaints (some people absolutely hate it) and these other platforms are not yet field tested. So, essentially, I think Pleco is going in the right direction.