As a longtime Palm aficionado it pains me to admit this, but it must be said: Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating system is gaining serious ground in the handheld wars, especially the skirmishes involving PDA/phone hybrids.

I found this conclusion inescapable as I surveyed my desk recently: Stacked up awaiting inspection were two Windows Mobile-based devices from T-Mobile (the MDA Pocket PC and the SDA Smartphone) and Sprint Nextel 's Windows Mobile-based PPC-6700, a PDA/phone hybrid that was reviewed a few months back by our editor-in-chief, Harry McCracken. And those were just the ones on hand: In the same time frame a company called i-Mate stopped by just to show me preproduction versions of three Windows Mobile-based handhelds.