And given the biquity of microUSB and the fact it’s a clearly defined open standard, it’s rather easy for anyone to make accessories. And since the miniUSB to microUSB issue is likely common, you could (and probably should) easily get a generic adapter rather then putting up with rather crap Palm tries to offload on you.

As posters have indicated, the Open Mobile Terminal Platform group endorsed microUSB and many new phones from many manufacturers are including it for data and charging eliminating the silly and annoying games that have been played for a long while with each brand having one or more charging plugs requiring multiple chargers for multiple phones. And the same with data cables which many phones don’t even come with anyway requiring expensive accessories all the time.

BTW given that mini USB has been depreciated, it seems likely to me most devices will either use micro USB or normal USB in the future. (I know of at least one mouse that does).

The situation with microSD and miniSD is similar in some ways although mini was never depreciated but it also never really had a chance to took off so it’s only a few poor sods who have miniSD.

IMHO this is a really good idea. Micro USB also looks set to have much wider adoption when it comes to phones than Mini USB ever had. Whether it takes off in other applications (e.g. digital cameras, portable hard drives) remains to be seen.