These speculations are tottally based upon the fact that Palm Pre, to be released soon, has Background application support or rather full multitasking. in order to meet competition, they might have to come up with this. Though, unofficailly, iPhone already has “backgrounder” that lets you run apps in background.
I think the most valuable type of application to run in the background for me is a VOIP and IM application which remain connected to internet all the time and give me the real experience. SOme other most desired would be like running bulky appliations in background by putting them into some low memory state for quick execution next time.