...now you see the genesis team that “invented” the radical “new” Palm.
March 28, 2008
Remarkable. Downtrodden handset maker Palm (PALM) has somehow managed to poach another Apple (AAPL) veteran: Lynn Fox, the company’s now former director of Mac PR.
First Jon Rubinstein, former head of hardware engineering at Apple. Then Mike Bell the company’s VP of CPU software, in the Macintosh hardware division. And now Fox.
What does Palm have up its sleeve that could possibly inspire Rubinstein, Bell and Fox to leave Apple at a time like this?
...now you see the genesis team that “invented” the radical “new” Palm.
March 28, 2008
Remarkable. Downtrodden handset maker Palm (PALM) has somehow managed to poach another Apple (AAPL) veteran: Lynn Fox, the company’s now former director of Mac PR.
First Jon Rubinstein, former head of hardware engineering at Apple. Then Mike Bell the company’s VP of CPU software, in the Macintosh hardware division. And now Fox.
What does Palm have up its sleeve that could possibly inspire Rubinstein, Bell and Fox to leave Apple at a time like this?
Yes I’ve known about this. The question is will Steve Jobs do anything about it? And if not, what was his speech about “boy, have we patented it!” about?
On the one hand, it sure looks like it could get ugly if Apple wanted it to, since the Pre is one of the most iPhone-looking iPhone lookalikes out there (keyboard excepted). Exactly how novel is making Safari window-type switching into a paradigm for the entire webOS? And what about the Multi-Touch patents (is the “gesture bar” some kind of attempt to get around the pervasive gesture system in OS X touch?)?
Still, derivative as it is, it’s no threat to Apple, being, well, Palm and all. And there are some things that just might be genuine “improvements” (like quicker/smoother accelerometer response and faster webpage rendering) if Palm can really get better performance with similar battery size/life.
pretty slick but a blatant copy. I will buy a few shares of this after the first lawsuit makes the headlines. Apple has at least a 2 year head start so it poses little threat. However I might get a little concerned if Palm sells out to RIMM, HPQ or MSFT. That would change the game a bit. Palm’s market cap is about half a billion dollars, chump change for these behemoths
I’m impressed with the Pre. Exactly what you’d expect from people who developed the first iPhone and understand properly what it is about. But remember that this is not a shipping product, and comparisons with a long shipping product are going to be very favourable. No ship date, launched exactly 2 years after iPhone. Video/audio not ready for showing yet, (or there are licensing issues). Similar initial application model (web 2.0 style, although not restricted to javascript).
This is the first viable iPhone competitor, and it looks to be about 2.5 years behind iPhone. The slickness is simply from having a processor 3 times as fast as iPhone (or, I think G1). The OMAP3430 is what Apple rejected in favour of developing its own SOC with PA Semi. Wait to compare an iPhone based on that.
Still to come for Pre: video/audio, cloud services (push email, sync), app store, global rollout, GSM/3G. Unknown: battery life, desktop sync.
Apple currently allows a price umbrella for products like this. But when Palm Pre is shipping, things may be different!
So who should buy Palm now? SE, Nokia, Samsung, Apple?
However I might get a little concerned if Palm sells out to RIMM, HPQ or MSFT. That would change the game a bit. Palm’s market cap is about half a billion dollars, chump change for these behemoths
Think this was a big calling card from Palm to Apple to say “Buy Us”.
Hardware, software, OS, all a go. But what about price? Palm seems unable to get it below the cost of an iPhone, and their network partner is not advantageous, let alone better enough to justify a large price premium. I bet the Palm hardware in a tear-down would be a bit over the cost of the iPhone, but not by enough to explain the retail price disadvantage.
People forget, though, that Apple orders parts by the million, and has a specifically advantageous position when buying flash memory. Apple has every advantage in this market. Moreover, their OS development is funded by app sales, and addresses a far broader range of markets than does Palm’s WebOS hardware lineup of one. The XServe and iPhone are both improved when Apple iterates Mac OS X. Expecting the Pre to equal the iPhone is like asking for a PowerMac at the price of a Dell in 1998.
Let me point to the MP3 player markets. I resisted the iPod thing for a few years, purchased five or six other brands of MP3 players, many of them were MUCH sexier than the iPod, cheaper, and some had better features.
But NONE of them were able much to dent the iPod franchise.
It boiled down to, the iTunes store, AND some things that others haven’t emphasized, the TIE INS, like the Podcasts, that ALL were registered with AAPL, allowing me to download the seven DAILY ones that I subscribe to, and without ANY hassle whatsoever have them synced to the iPod or iTouch.
It really wasn’t in the end the GIZMO, nor the OPERATING SYSTEM, but the ECOSPHERE that grew up around the iPod, the accessories, the sites, the buzz, the third party EVERYTHING that made the difference.
Given that the ENTIRE iPod ECOSPHERE is now hooked into this BASE, no matter how good any new rival smartphone is, they start at GROUND ZERO, and why would ANYONE go there, UNLESS the product was VASTLY superior, GREATLY CHEAPER?
I don’t see them really getting much traction initially, and I view this more as a DUMP WINDOWS MOBILE, and BID MY COMPANY UP in a two or three way bidding war to get the OS for use with an established vendor with a captive market.
meanwhile, another big UP day form PALM, + 38% as I type, that’s like 75% in 2 days, outch!
Yeah, and IF they had been at $1 a share, they would be at 400% gain in four days….too.
I smell a HUGE SHORT opportunity.
You’re absolutly wright, it’s easier to reach those level at 4$ than at 90$. Like you, I suspect profit taking is not too far, but how far, that is the question, do we have time to take advantage of this?
We all have to admit that the Palm Pre has some great features, such as the Card View (which would not be possible to implement in the iPhoneOS as it is currently designed because any running iPhone App is actually shut down before another one launches). Other great ideas are the Universal Search, Notification Dashboard, Combined Messaging, Linked Contacts and true GPS Navigation (all of them would be easily implemented by Apple). So the Pre has its own remarkable merits.
However, I agree with the general view on this thread that given the big time advantage that the iPhone has over the Pre (which even lacks a release date) and the huge acceptance the iPhone has from the developers community, it will be very difficult for Palm to get a significant dent to Apple.
We all have to admit that the Palm Pre has some great features, such as the Card View (which would not be possible to implement in the iPhoneOS as it is currently designed because any running iPhone App is actually shut down before another one launches). Other great ideas are the Universal Search, Notification Dashboard, Combined Messaging, Linked Contacts and true GPS Navigation (all of them would be easily implemented by Apple). So the Pre has its own remarkable merits.
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And not to forget: Cut, Copy, Paste!
May be Apple just needs some competition to give us all those nice features we are still waiting for…
You’re absolutly wright, it’s easier to reach those level at 4$ than at 90$. Like you, I suspect profit taking is not too far, but how far, that is the question, do we have time to take advantage of this?
Be careful, PALM is not going to $4 so easily. The Pre will be perceived by the investing community as a real threat to the RIMMs and AAPLs. If any, the value of PALM may reflect the price of an eventual buyout from any of the big guys, which are desperate to be competitive in the Smart Phone market, such as MSFT. Think of it, PALM is still the price of a couple of pizzas for MS or RIMM or AAPL or ??. Will it go back to the price of a coffee that easily?. I don’t think so.
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