Adjustment Period

[pavvento]

Hey Everyone,

Do you think that the devices being revealed in February are spec final, or able to be adjusted?

After reading about some of the Android phones announced during CES it seems that the bar has been raised spec wise (especially with Motorola's AT&T Phone that has a 1900 mAh battery). I wonder if Palm has time to compare its future offerings vs its now current competition and possibly revise the guts of any devices ahead of the 9th.

I know that hardware isn't everything, but it's a big something.

What do you think?

Here are some of those phones I'm referencing:

http://gizmodo.com/5725505/motorolas...s-atts-fastest

http://gizmodo.com/5725053/samsungs-...-the-new-nexus

[mikah912]

I would hope HP was shooting for the same sorts of specs from the jump, but you never know.

[m3grady2]

if that lg optimus black comes to sprint it might very well be later for webos

[JED-WEB-OS]

Do you think that the devices being revealed in February are spec final, or able to be adjusted?

If you are speaking about hardware, it is driven by when manufacturing started. If the product is already being fabricated it is difficult to deviate from the Spec. If production has not began or some parts are on HOLD pending competition feature review, than their may be some wiggle room before hardware release.

Since some factors such as clock speed can be adjusted by software changes, those functions may not reach their final form until well after reveal and release.

[Cantaffordit]

I think anything that isn't locked down already would be planned for late in 2011. My guess is that they are almost ready to start manufacturing whatever the next device is that Palm will ship.

However, things like the actual battery spec (capacity) doesn't matter as much as whether it will last long enough in real-world usefulness. In the tablet products, they can put in a battery that has the same dimensions as the LCD. That's why the iPad feels heavier than I expected, it's basically a giant battery with an LCD glued on.

In smartphones, I don't care if the battery is 1,000mA or 20,000mA. I care about it lasting through an 18 hour day of heavy use. Not really practical in the Pre chassis, but Palm would be foolish on a grand scale if they didn't create a phone that draws very little power and has the biggest battery they can pour in to it. Even if that means it isn't removable Palm has to jump ahead of everyone in battery life. Hard to do with current technology, but it's going to be table stakes for the next wave of smartphone buyers who aren't going to hang out in user forums to learn battery tweaks. IMHO

Every phone maker knows what new technology is coming (like newer screens, dual core CPUs, etc) a looooong time in advance. They have to order capacity ahead. Often bigger players can buy all of the manufacturing capacity for a new component. It is harder to do these days, but I used to work for a company that liked to do that to stay ahead of competition. The key is for the phone maker to be ready when the components are available to them in large quantity, and for those components to be available when they were promised. If Palm is planning a dual-core tablet in Q1 and the CPU isn't available on time, then Palm is stuck. If they want to launch one in Q2 but the vendor says they won't have something available until Q3, Palm either has to push out their timeline or find an alternate to that component.

That's why it's funny when I read complaints about the speed at which people think Palm or other companies should move. Between lining up component manufacturing in the far east, assembly and delivery from a chinese factory, getting the firmware/software done, and getting it through the hoops each carrier makes them jump through... it takes a long time between innovation and execution. Palm, the carriers (even sprint) and the various component vendors have been working on this stuff for months. And in some cases Palm had to go to the back of the line when HP bought them and time stood still for a few months. It's like herding cats to get all those things to line up.

That said, Palm has known what CPUs and Battery tech was going to be available back when vendors were pitching it to Palm, HTC, Motorola, etc. So even if Palm didn't know the specifics being used by a competitor (ARM vs AMD vs TI) they know what each of the components will be capable of. So decisions like CPU, clock speed, battery, etc are made early in the process. An HTC announcement at CES is not a surprise to competitors at a high level, but at the detail level, especially software.

But, if Palm is caught by surprise and is about to build something that is already obsolete, they could certainly make design changes and accept that the product release date will probably be delayed. In general, the longer the public has to wait, the more groundbreaking the product needs to be. HTC launches a new phone every few weeks, so they can make minor improvements. Palm hasn't done anything revolutionary in more than a year, so they need to impress the market with what they've been doing with all that time...