Wired: Palm Pre a big fat fail???

[Mahootzki]

Palm: ‘We Can’t Afford to Sell the Pre to the Wrong Customers’ | Gadget Lab | Wired.com


From their article, very harsh it hurts

Yes. According to Palm, if you are a business customer, you should buy the Treo. The Pre, the much-hyped Palm-saviour, is not good enough for you. Full marks to Palm for being honest, but this is a somewhat suicidal statement given the company’s precarious position. It hurts me to do this as I’d love to see the Pre succeed, but I predict a big fat fail. The Pre is no more an iPhone killer than the Zune was an iPod killer. There will be a big bang on the opening weekend followed by a slow and quiet spiral into obscurity.

[Gekko]

sounds like an apple ****** wrote it.

[quipper8]

I kind of agree, for business use, the Treo Pro is the better device:

microsd card slot
infrared
long lived legacy codebase


That said, I don't think the Pre is a big fat fail. At my company we are sticking with Treos, but I want a Pre for my home life

[1812dave]

Originally Posted by Mahootzki

Palm: ‘We Can’t Afford to Sell the Pre to the Wrong Customers’ | Gadget Lab | Wired.com


From their article, very harsh it hurts

Whoopee doo. Another moronic pundit's ruminations.

[ADGrant]

Originally Posted by Gekko

sounds like an apple ****** wrote it.

Perhaps, but it was mostly quoting Palm/Sprint.

[bubbatex]

Don't remember Apple touting the iPhone as a "business device" out of the gate either. That business pdf makes good sense to me. Palm is telling the large enterprise accounts that the Pre might not be the right device for them - at least at this time. Anyway, what large enterprise client would take a chance on such a new device anyway?

[gruppe3942]

why exactly is the pre not a business device. Maybe i am looking at it the wrong way. When they say business...are they talking about a BIG coporation with hundreds of employees or someone who uses exchange server for their business ect...

[ADGrant]

Originally Posted by quipper8

That said, I don't think the Pre is a big fat fail. At my company we are sticking with Treos, but I want a Pre for my home life

My company is Blackberry only. I think it unrealistic to expect companies with a large number of employess carrying smartphones to adopt a platform. Most companies are either going to standardize on Blackberries or (if they have specific mobile app requirements or want to save money on a BES license) Windows Mobile.

Though my personal device is a PalmOS Centro, if I was a CIO, I would probably adopt a Blackberry only policy.

[dave75]

Originally Posted by gruppe3942

why exactly is the pre not a business device. Maybe i am looking at it the wrong way. When they say business...are they talking about a BIG coporation with hundreds of employees or someone who uses exchange server for their business ect...

I think the problem is that all of the security features for Exchange are not implemented at this point. For example there is a remote swipe feature provided by Palm, but there is no remote swipe from an Exchange server. Many companies have standards that a phone must meet and I don't think the Pre meets some of them.

[quipper8]

Originally Posted by ADGrant

I think it unrealistic to expect companies with a large number of employess carrying smartphones to adopt a platform.

especially a brnad new platform. Companies can't exactly go out and hire Mojo developers right now to get what they need on the Pre, not to mention that most businesses like to own their data and would never ever go for Palm Profile backups off of their own servers.

[Gekko]

i think Palm should have never put that in black and white. yes there are enterprise situations where the Pre is no good, but there are many where it is just fine.

1. Palm has many Treos already in the enterprise. Pre is at least as good and its EAS is much better.
2. lots of iphones starting to show up out there in enterprise.
3. any complex IT situation the phones will be bought buy the IT people. these IT people don't walk into a Sprint store or BB. the IT guys know what they want to buy and they know to ask the questions up front regarding enterprise specs.

[jhoff80]

Originally Posted by ADGrant

I think it unrealistic to expect companies with a large number of employess carrying smartphones to adopt a platform.

That's my take on it as well. They're telling IT departments that the Treo Pro is the device for their company. However, they're not telling anyone that they can't buy the Pre for business purposes. Generally at companies I've worked at, the IT department will only support one platform. If you want to use another device like the iPhone, you usually can (with a bit of coersion mostly), but they won't support it.

I'm sure it'll be the same thing for the Pre.

[Gekko]

i think the IT Guys are smart enough to know what to buy.

[hparsons]

Originally Posted by ADGrant

Perhaps, but it was mostly quoting Palm/Sprint.

No, in fact he quoted Palm, and then reached his own conclusion:

Yes. According to Palm, if you are a business customer, you should buy the Treo. The Pre, the much-hyped Palm-saviour, is not good enough for you.

What Palm's document actually said was that if the customer's answer to any of those questions was "yes", then they should not buy the Pre. That is exactly correct. Look at the questions proposed:

• Does your company have specific security and manageability requirements for mobile devices?
  At this point, those security and manageability functions don't exist. If your company requires them, you will not be able to use the Pre.
  
• Does your company have specific application requirements?
  Those applications likely don't exist (yet).
  
• Does your line of busines require specific product features on mobile devices?
  Same thing, the features are (probably) not present on the Pre.
  
• Does your company centrally provision devices for large deployements?
  Again, no centrally managed security. This is a deal breaker in some organizations.

The purpose of that internal document was to make sure that reps were not selling the Pre to users that would not be able to use them the way they expected.

The document never said, nor implied, that the Pre was not "good enough" for business customers, only that it would not meet those required criteria.

[jbg7474]

Originally Posted by dave75

I think the problem is that all of the security features for Exchange are not implemented at this point. For example there is a remote swipe feature provided by Palm, but there is no remote swipe from an Exchange server. Many companies have standards that a phone must meet and I don't think the Pre meets some of them.

That's not true. There is a remote wipe feature on the Exchange server. You can get to it from OWA (at least on Exchange 2007). I don't know if it wipes the entire device or only the Exchange data as I've never had occasion to try it (nor am I willing to test it!).

[cardfan]

The only thing i got from that is that wired.com is a big fat fail.

[DougB541]

Um does it matter? Windows mobile is a popular device in the business world (not as big as blackberrys but you get the idea)

Palm is still has a very good WinMo phone....if that meets business needs better...why wouldn't they still sell it?

[jhoff80]

Originally Posted by Gekko

i think the IT Guys are smart enough to know what to buy.

You might be surprised many times.

[no1smartphone]

The way I have read about it is this.

Place the Pre between the Iphone and Blackberry and you kind of get what it is. It can do multimedia like the Iphone and do email like the Blackberry but it can't beat either at their games because its too much of a compromise.

[mobileman]

Originally Posted by jbg7474

That's not true. There is a remote wipe feature on the Exchange server. You can get to it from OWA (at least on Exchange 2007). I don't know if it wipes the entire device or only the Exchange data as I've never had occasion to try it (nor am I willing to test it!).

There is no confirmation that this works with the Pre. In fact, the launch guide says otherwise.