Is Pre Palm's Last Gasp or New Life?
News Analysis. The biggest mobile news of the week came not from Macworld but from Consumer Electronics Show. Palm has turned its near-death experience into new life. |
Pretty much everyone, me included, had discounted Palm in the smartphone market. It's strange, since Palm really popularized the category—and long before there were even rumors of an Apple mobile.
At one time, Palm literally held the next-generation computing platform in the palm of its hand. Business users and some consumers loved early Palm devices, circa late 1990s into early 2000s. Palms had touchscreens long before Apple designers realistically conceived of a Mac phone with one. Palm also commanded mobile application development like no other tech company. Then, Palm lost it all through a series of ridiculously stupid business decisions and outmaneuvering by upstarts such as Research in Motion.
Until yesterday.
The Palm Pre is generating simply shocking buzz. It reminds me of, well, iPhone buzz. Bloggers and journalists are cooing cacophony over Palm's new Pre smartphone. A day earlier, these same writers could just as easily have written Palm's epitaph. Palm had been lingering slowly towards death for years. Each new attempt at revival only left the body weaker. Palm was over. It was yesteryear, while iPhone is tomorrow.
Until yesterday.
Strangely, Palm's life-saving transfusion came from Apple. Jon Rubinstein left Apple in 2006 to later join Palm. It was an act of disloyalty. Jon had been with Apple CEO Steve Jobs at NeXT, during Steve's exile years from Apple. Jon moved with Steve to Apple in late 1996. The engineer is credited with developing iPod and making important contributions to iMac and to iPhone development.
Now he's the man behind Palm's revival and development of Pre. Jon also has done for Palm what he did for Apple a decade ago: Clean up product lines, streamline manufacturing and refocus research and development. He also brought to Palm a vision rejected at Apple for iPhone: A keyboard. Pre has a multitouch screen and keyboard, unlike iPhone.
Palm also introduced WebOS, its new mobile operating system, which the Pre runs. Palm's past strength came from hardware and software. But half a decade ago, Palm lost the best of its vitality by divestiture in software. The Palm name followed the hardware, leaving the device/platform weakened and later ailing. Pre appeals as much for the operating system as the hardware.
Big buzz only goes so far. Palm has risen from the death bed, exhibiting surprising, even youthful, vigor. But while Palm lay comatose, the mobile phone market changed. Where once Palm competed with BlackBerrys and Windows Mobile phones, there is now iPhone 3G and the T-Mobile G1, which is just the first of many expected Android-based phones. Touchscreen phones are seemingly everywhere.
Something else: Palm set the gold standard for data synchronization. Most smartphone developers/manufacturers now offer pretty good sync—Apple exceptionally well.
"They definitely get the idea that sync is important and that users want to sync both their work and personal lives seamlessly on one device," Michael Gartenberg blogged yesterday.
What Palm lost in application development, Apple gained. Combined with iPhone and iPod Touch, the App Store is strongest candidate yet to become the next-generation computing platform. Palm needs more than just a new smartphone and new mobile operating system. The company needs to recapture developer momentum, which Apple has got.
Michael observed: "What's intriguing is what's needed to develop here. In their words, 'If you know CMS, HTML, XML, you can design for this platform. If you can do Web development, you can design for this -- no new languages to learn.'"
But is that enough given Apple and Google development strategies? Is even the Pre enough?
"While most gadget gurus (and lots of readers who follow me on Twitter) seem to be quite taken with the newest shiniest object...I remain highly skeptical of Palm's chance to succeed with this new effort. I may be the only one who isn't buying it," Om Malik blogged yesterday.
I'm with Om. It looks to me like Palm rose from its death bed before being really ready to stand solidly on two legs. Palm may have announced Pre, but the device isn't yet shipping. The company gave a broad time frame of first half. Another problem: Pre is exclusive to Sprint, which isn't carrier enough to carry the device into the increasingly crowded smartphone market place.
Perhaps Pre isn't the measure of Palm's future. Maybe it's Jon Rubinstein. While Steve Jobs takes credit for reviving Apple and rebuilding its brand and market share, people like Jon are the unsung heroes who turned ideas into complex products that are simple to use. Logistics matter at struggling companies, with Apple a decade ago and Palm today. Both companies share like logistical chaos that Jon helped turn into order.
If Pre is it—all Palm's remaining energy put into one product—death is certain. But if Pre is the beginning, just the first among many new products and services, maybe Palm's life, livelihood and secure position in the market place is assured.
If yesterday is tomorrow.
[Please send your tips or rumors to watchtips at live.com].
Comments (17)
Wow - I was a die-hard Treo fanatic and am now an iphone user. BUT iPhone is not and likely never will be as useful as my old Treo 750. On iPhone you cannot sort your contacts, you cannot copy and paste - no two apps can work together and Apple won’t allow new apps to touch their base program. What that means is calendar and contacts don’t work together, there is no linking, and there is no real calendar function – no synergy between many of the admittedly beautiful apps. Simply put, iPhone is a lot of fun, but I got things done with my Treo (my carrier stopped carrying Palm over a year ago so I had to find an alternate). This new Pre simply blows me away and I will absolutely switch back to Palm as soon as this device is available - it looks amazing and more importantly, I can get back to getting things done!!!
Posted by John | January 9, 2009 4:13 PM
It has wi-fi. My Centro doesn't. I agree with John's post, with the Treos and Centros, you can really DO things. I hope this new PRE phone has the new Linux OS I've been hearing about.
Posted by Eddie C. | January 9, 2009 5:10 PM
I think it looks really great and what i like about it is that it touch screen and a keyboard hopefully it comes out to be a good phone!!!
Posted by Yamilett | January 9, 2009 5:41 PM
so freakin excited
Posted by keisha | January 9, 2009 6:26 PM
The latest Nokia business phone E71 is amazing i don't know why Nokia doesn't advertise this phone as much.
The sync works perfect and with ovi it is even better you can sync online to you ovi account. you can open as many apps at a time as you want its 3G, Wifi, GPS, with builtin Nokia maps for whole world and is really fast. the only thing I liked about palm would be hand writing recognition or just if you can scribble notes through stylus in the meetings
Posted by Kashif | January 9, 2009 7:01 PM
Wow i really loved your article, kudos!
Posted by lajeci | January 9, 2009 7:02 PM
I'm super excited too! this phone is perfect touchscreen (big screen) and an awesome os. I'm totally going to switch from the HTC touch pro to this phone as soon as its out.
Posted by lajeci | January 9, 2009 7:06 PM
Great article. I happen to agree with you. I remain a bit skeptical that this will revive Palm, but I think it looks great. If the iPhones and all the other iPhone look-a-likes and blackberries weren't already flooding the market it might be a different story as well... The Palm Pre looks to have some great tech, but it's not always tech that wins. Only time will tell.
Posted by Jeff Sawyer | January 9, 2009 7:10 PM
Can't wait to get my hands on this ;)
Posted by Lucia | January 9, 2009 7:26 PM
What's needed is a 2nd product, a phoneless Pre, just as Apple has the iPod Touch devices that are iPhones without the phone part. For everyone who needs an internet-connected PDA, but doesn't want/need another big monthly phone/data plan bill.
THAT would solidify a comeback. And draw developers.
-- stan
Posted by Stan Krute | January 10, 2009 12:36 AM
Will the Pre have handwriting recognition? That's one of the reasons why Palm was so cool - no need for a keyboard it had graffiti.
Posted by dgee | January 10, 2009 3:03 AM
I hope the keys are like the Treo 750 and not like the Centro, if so this will be their MAJOR DOWNFALL.
Posted by JRo | January 10, 2009 3:20 PM
what?!?
Sorry to say it but this review is full of crap, but Its easy to find out why you wrote all this. You are a loyal and blind iphone user. All features on Plam Pré are most better or far better then the same ones on iphone. If you just get in touch with the tecnology that is behind the webOS and his idea, im sure you didnt write the things like you describe.
The Palm pré could not be the perfect product but it gots all that the apple didnt done in iphone, like dont having that rediculous copy and paste (basic operation) thing.
3G phone is a completlly joke, my college charges him twice a day at work time, that means in 8 hours i dont know if he charges more times during the time im not present.
As i say all the time iphone is a toy, not a productivity smarthphone.
Did you actually see how fast is searching the information on Pré? Comunicating via multi sources? REAL fast webBrowsing? The REAL multi-task cards thing?
The iphone is too limited, that stupid jail sense thing... its a good reason to not buying it.
And for those that thinks that iphone is the perfect product here it's a link for you.
http://www.who-sucks.com/tech/15-reasons-why-apples-iphone-sucks
iphone needs urgent upgrade even LG, Samsung, and HTC is doing better things now check it out CES 2009 news.
and yes Palm Pré is a a revolucionary product, like they done when intruduced the 1st palm pilot.
take care...
Posted by PxG | January 12, 2009 10:24 AM
I wholeheartedly agree with Stan Krute. Those of us who have stuck with Palm because we don't need a smart phone but we DO need a competent PDA with gobs of software (such as DocumentsToGo and SplashData) are eagerly awaiting whether there will be a nice bulletproof phoneless PDA coming soon, now that Palm has apparently demonstrated a long-promised competent multitasking OS to succeed the aging Palm OS 5.x. Although I am still using my six-year-old Tungsten T because it has taken a licking and keeps on ticking.
With a keyboard, we could even do without Graffiti; when one has to hunt and peck on a virtual keyboard with a stylus, it is something of a chore.
Ruggedness is going to be key. My Tungsten has outlasted my wife's Zire 31, Zire 72, and LifeDrive. She is now using a T|X. I've only had to do one complete system restore in over six years. What Windows Mobile device could say that?
Posted by Stratocaster | January 12, 2009 1:59 PM
PxG, your 'reasons why the iphone sucks' site is outdated as it was written in 2007 (pre 3G)
more than half of those reasons listed aren't true anymore
Posted by markbaker | January 12, 2009 2:23 PM
I hope this develops, and, more importantly, comes to Verizon. I like Verizon's coverage and network, but their smart phone offerings are paltry -- basically limited to Windows Mobile and Blackberry.
I'm using one of their WinMobile phones now, and it's not only a mediocre phone, but Windows on the mobile platform is even worse than on a PC -- it's slow (it won't keep up with me while hand-dialing), needs twice-monthly rebooting, and is surprisingly unconfigurable (without paying for additional software) for a general-purpose OS.
I was thinking of a Blackberry next time around, but don't like the closed nature of it and the relatively crippled browsers (though I had to get Opera Mobile on my current phone for decent browsing). And the newer ones (Curve and Storm) have limitations that would make me think twice about them (weird keyboard and touch screen, resp.)
I used to use Palm PDAs, and liked them, but specifically wanted to combine that function into my phone. All I want is a good, snappy phone with keyboard, a decent PDA, and a competent web browser for occasional use. Camera and media player functionality is not important. I hope Verizon gets something like that by next fall.
Posted by Corey | January 12, 2009 7:33 PM
markbaker,
Yes I know that, but iphone still missing important features and corrects...
iphone like i said its a toy with many aplications. Palm pré is a materpiece of integration with the cloud. I think many people are dont getting yet the filosophy made by palm. My advice is to see the full demo and when you finished, try to think iphone mather again, its like thinking in a device from the past.
here is url:
http://www.palm.com/us/products/phones/pre/palm-pre-ces.html
thx :)
Posted by PxG | January 13, 2009 4:34 AM