The war for dominance in the cell phone space has raged for two decades, with Apple simply the latest pretender to the throne, sending competitors into a frenzy as they decide how best to deal with the fruity threat.

Palm’s latest Treo smartphones, namely the Garnet OS based Treo 680 and the new Windows Mobile based Treo 750, are both capable models that bring new features and slightly refined case designs and inject some extra life into the popular Treo brand.

But compared with the iPhone, any of Samsung’s new slim phones, Nokia’s N95 and E65, LG’s Prada phone, Sony Ericsson’s walkman phones and plenty of others, Palm’s current designs are starting to look a little dated – and thick, although this doesn’t seem to have dissuaded consumers, especially in North America, from being enthusiastic Treo supporters.

While Mercer hasn’t, as far as we are aware, been hired to work on the Treo’s physical design, he is expected to breathe new life into Palm’s software interface – the crucial new battleground that has been ignited in the most spectacular way by the unveiling of the iPhone by Steve Jobs at last January’s Macworld.

Mercer is also slated to work on a new range of Palm products that have not as yet been publicly announced, although Palm co-founder Jeff Hawkins has hinted that Palm will soon introduce a new product that they have been working on for two and a half years – without Mercer’s input.

Any products that Mercer is now working on will likely take some time to appear on the market, given the lead times in developing new products, test cycles, FCC approvals and more, as is current industry practice and as evidenced by Hawkins’ long development time for his secret new product.

In an interview with PalmAddicts.com, Hawkins gave us some hints on what this secret product might be. He said that “We’re going to be announcing something…but I won’t tell you what it is…we will be launching this year, not in the distant future. I’ll give you a much bigger hint: I’m going to be speaking at Walt Mossberg’s D Conference in May. It’s a high-end industry conference. Anyway, I’m going to be giving a talk there, and that would be something for the Palm fans to keep a close watch on."

Mercer is still relatively young at 39, and will be joined at Palm by two of his previous employees from his independent design firm Iventor, although that company remains independent of any Palm investment and was not acquired.

It is understood that Palm has also hired Chatterbox email client developer Marc Blank, a popular email program for the Palm Treo.

Palm’s hiring of Mercer is no doubt but a glimpse into the thoughts of Apple’s competitors, all long established cell phone designers and manufacturers, who are now grappling with how best to deal with the clear and present threat that the iPhone poses to the entire cell phone industry, on many different fronts.

Hiring an ex-Apple guru with a proven track record is an excellent first step, and causes us to expect some impressive developments from Palm in the future. Watch this space – Apple, all of Palm’s competitors and all of us are certainly looking very closely to see what rabbits they can pull out of the hat!
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