Palm Inc. has no plans to join Google’s newly announced Open Handset Alliance at this time according to statements from Palm representatives when reached for comment today.

Google’s new Linux based mobile operating system announced earlier today is backed by a new consortium of companies called the Open Handset Alliance and notably includes many of Palm’s current partners and competitors. Google’s efforts with Android will directly compete with Palm’s own mobile linux project as well as its Windows Mobile business. Read on for a official statement from Palm.

Palm’s official statement on today’s Google & Open Handset Alliance news is:

Palm has always been committed to open platforms for developers. And Palm has the added differentiation of being able to tightly integrate the software platform with our hardware design, which we believe gives us an advantage in delivering a great user experience. Palm customers have benefited from the availability of Google services on Palm’s platform, such as Google Maps for mobile on Palm OS. And we look forward to further collaboration with Google to offer great user experiences on Palm products.

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We’d heard rumors about the Glofiish X600 last month, and now E-TEN’s made it official. The red and black WinMo 6 handset isn’t going to blow anyone’s mind, but it’s a solid addition to the Glofiish lineup: 2.8-inch QVGA screen, 2 megapixel cam, quad-band GSM (no 3G, though), GPS, WiFi, and Bluetooth. No word on price, but E-TEN says we’ll be seeing these hit in mid-November — just enough time for us to get settled in with the now-shipping X800.

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Sure, a Google-sponsored phone OS in the way of Android is pretty great news for mobile phone land, but what if your really had your heart set on some Google hardware this Monday morning? Well take heart, because Forbes has the skinny on an HTC device labeled “Dream,” (most likely not pictured above) which could very well be oft-rumored hardware of legend, and could also be hitting the market as early as next year. Apparently the phone is one of roughly five prototypes that Google had built to demonstrate the Open Handset Alliance software to potential members, and HTC’s Peter Chou says in the two years it’s been working on OHA designs, “this is the best one we’ve seen.” The device itself, which measures about 3 x 5-inches, sports a touchscreen, navigational controls at the base, and a full swivel out keyboard. When swiveled the screen goes from portrait to landscape mode, but unfortunately that’s the limit of info on the actual hardware. The software apparently has “time-sensitive” touch controls that expands your area control the longer you touch. Icons for your most important apps — which are apparently email, text documents, and YouTube — are lined up across the top of the screen. There’s also some fancy stuff under the hood to keep an ongoing browser session open to speed launch times, and the browser downloads large files in stages to speed delivery. HTC is considering a commercial version of the phone, which we could be seeing as soon as the second half of 2008.

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The Google Phone has been announced, and instead of being manufactured by just one company, it’s an open software platform that’s going to be included on phones made by HTC, LG, Motorola and Samsung. And best of all, those phones are going to be available on Sprint and T-Mobile. Plus, it’s going to be available in China, Japan, Germany, Italy, and Spain. The 34 members of the Open Handset Alliance will throw in their expertise (example, Nvidia with their graphical abilities, Skype with their VoIPing) and offer the collective goods under an open source licensing agreement. Hell, Google might not even put their logo on the phone itself—they just want to sell advertisements to users through it.

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