Palms results announced yesterday were not good at all, but there is reason for optimism. Firstly the comment that “we’re making great progress on future products” could be looked at as just corporate bluster, but I believe that there is something special in the works. I am going to go out on a limb here and predict that Palm is working on a smartphone that uses a stylus, but one that is infinitely better than previous stylus driven smartphones. It is a difficult subject to go into detail about for many reasons so just bear with me on this and look out for what the future may bring.
Patents are potentially a hugely profitable area in the smartphone industry at the moment and it seems as though everyone is suing everyone else at the moment. Apple could go after Palm on some patents such as the way a list bounces when you reach the end, but Apple suing Palm would cause a storm that even Apple may struggle to deal with.
Palm holds many patents which date back from the early days of smartphones and some notable ones include the dial screen on a phone, searching for contacts just by typing a few letters, automatically adjusting brightness dependant on ambient lighting conditions, automatic full brightness setting when a power accessory is attached and a conference call system which is almost identical to the iPhone setup.
Read that last paragraph again and consider how much those patents are worth, and then consider how many mobile phones and smartphones use those features. Also, these are useful extras to get if a company like RIM or Nokia decided that webOS is an OS which would benefit them a great deal, which it would.
Just maybe we are worrying too much about Palms future?
Webos has potential, good hardware will raise the game. Murray tells me the software side is excellent.
One of the ky differences of Palm now, and Palm five years ago is that they now have both driven and competant engineering and management staff. This was simply not the case when Ed Colligan was in charge and the performance of the company in general suffered.
WebOS is excellent but the difficulty at the moment lies with fighting against the huge wave on which the iPhone is riding.
If only they could sell the pre cheaper
They are just way too expensive here and still not official.
You are a TEASE – share some more nuggets! If PALM gives us a good build people will come.
“Just maybe we are worrying too much about Palms future?”
There is absolutely no reason for ANY optimism regarding Palm. The numbers don’t lie. The company’s balance sheet and financials are horrendous, it is burning through cash quicker than ever, net income is negative, and it is saddled with a substantial chunk of long term debt. Ghastly.
Will another white knight ride to the rescue, like Elevation partners did? I doubt it.
I have as much affection for Palm as the next guy, but it is in a very deep hole right now.
Palm is as resilient as Star Trek (or a cockroach,it seems…)- somehow it finds a way to live on..and on…and on…
My guess is that if they can’t find yet another white knight, the death knell will be heard soon.
Palm is like my old grandfather. I have great affection for him but doubt that he has long left on this earth. I just hope that he goes with dignity. He will leave a legacy that will last beyond his time.
The press is already sounding the death knell…
http://money.cnn.com/2010/03/19/technology/palm_target_price_zero/index.htm
Palm stock is in the toilet – sure someone might picked up some of the IP but Palm as a company has got less than 12 months to go.
The Palm Pre is a great device, but it takes a while to really appreciate it. Like other devices that have failed, it is not clear to me which market segment the Palm WebOS devices are aimed at. In today’s competetive environment you need to have compelling proposition (features) that the average person understands if you want to play in the mass market. If the rumour is true and Palm produce a stylus based devices, they may succeed especially in the Asian markets.
For me Palm died the day the Pre was released. I had been holding out and hoping for an upgrade for my Treo. The Pre seemed to be good at first but when I realised that there was no backward compatibility I was gutted. It never occurred to me that they would do that. (I don’t count MotionApps Classic: it’s a kludge)
Whether or not Palm survives this financial crisis is irrelevant to me now. It isn’t really Palm: just a company that carries the name. For me the spirit of Palm lives on in Android.
I lost my faith in Palm when they dropped development of a PDA. They let too much time go by with developement and Apple seized on this and came out with the Itouch iPod which is light years ahead of my old T/X. The one thing that Palm had going was multitasking which Apple is slow in allowing. Once Apple get mutitasking going, Palm will be left “in the dust”. I blame Ed Culligan for bringing Palm to this
precipice.
Pingback: webOS stylus driven tablet on the way? Palm was already working on it. | PDA-247