5 Reasons why the Pre will not Prevail

[no1smartphone]

Five Reasons the Palm Pre Won't Prevail - Business Center - PC World

4. The ability to run multiple applications at the same time will, over time, be important. But, it's a feature most other smartphones, except the iPhone, already possess. By the time multitasking becomes a must-have feature for the masses, Apple will have it.

That's the key issue.

Multi-tasking is lost on the masses. The ones who could name the 3 idol judges but not the 3 branches of government.

[jbg7474]

This is actually not a bad article. It's well written. The central point of the article seems to be that the Palm of today has nothing to do with the Palm of yesteryear--either its recent pseudo-failure or its more "glorious past." Palm today is essentially a startup.

However, the author could have (should have) recognized that Jon Rubinstein is a significant heavyweight. This is not a startup from someone who might not know what they're doing. Plus I doubt seriously that every single person who worked at Palm pre-Rubinstein has been let go. They have certainly retained some corporate knowledge (Ed Colligan comes to mind).

Additionally, so many tech bloggers seem to be caught up in the idea of whether the Pre can "beat" or "prevail against" the iPhone and Blackberry. There is room in the smartphone market for someone else. The Pre doesn't need to squash anyone. It can be quite successful and profitable for Palm at sales numbers significantly lower than the iPhone or Blackberry. Even if they sold 1M the first year, that would be a huge number, and plenty big enough to attract developers, given the reported ease of development. Especially as Palm puts out more and more devices running webOS, there will be plenty of developer interest.

[lopezpm]

I though it was a good read. I enjoy both sides of the story.

[ToolkiT]

ironically that's what a lot of palmOS fans used to say too...
(me included for the record)
But after using a multitaking OS I could not go back and it should be the standard, and secretly Apple knows this but is using some spindoctors for damage control..

I find it amazing that there are so many negative stories about a device that has not been released yet... either the Pre is crap or somebody is trying to put a lot of negative spin to try to make it fail..

Judging on the hard evicence I've seen so far I doubt that the Pre will be crap (but the jury is still out) so I fear it is the lather... which means they feel threatened because it is such a good device...

I truely hope that is the case...

[Darth Pooh]

High profile devices always have these types of articles written about them, some of them spin the negative so out of control it's silly. Others actually have valid concerns that come off as negatives...

It's all part of the "beast" that is SS + eagerly anticipated devices.

[heberman]

Originally Posted by no1smartphone

By the time multitasking becomes a must-have feature for the masses, Apple will have it.

That's an interesting article, thanks for posting it. However, the statement from the article quoted above is just fan-boyish. In other words: "Multi-tasking is not important. Except when Apple finally gets it, then multi-tasking will be important."

[lopezpm]

There are also positive stories about the device, that hasn't even been released.

[heberman]

From the comments section of that article:

How's this for good timing: Palm Pre: Five reasons to expect a homerun | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com

"Palm Pre: Five reasons to expect a homerun"

5. Palm knows how to build an ecosystem.

4. The carriers want an iPhone competitor.

3. The webOS will be a strong development platform.

2. Touchscreen + Qwerty.

1. It is the first true multi-tasking smartphone.

FIGHT!!!

[wynand32]

"iPhone killer" are two words that guarantee readers. In spite of Palm making it clear that they are not positioning directly "against" Apple, the media will continue to take that tack because it generates the most readership. Particularly at this point, when the Pre hasn't even been released yet.

[wynand32]

Originally Posted by heberman

That's an interesting article, thanks for posting it. However, the statement from the article quoted above is just fan-boyish. In other words: "Multi-tasking is not important. Except when Apple finally gets it, then multi-tasking will be important."

Hee hee. Precisely.

[sir_mycroft]

I think the only valid points in the article are that Palm is basically a start up and they don't have the financial capitol to compete anymore. The other points are a bit silly, if you ask me: "when multitasking becomes important, the iPhone will have it," sounds like he is saying, "when Jobs sees it as important, then it will be."

[northy014]

In the last fiscal quarter, Apple sold 3.79 million iPhones, and with lower cost data plans and broader carrier choice worldwide, this number will keep on expanding. That's a lot of phones; but even so, it is not hard to imagine that within a couple of years, Palm could consistently be hitting 1-2 million devices a quarter. With this kind of money, with high price smartphones, they will be solidly profitable.

As I have posted elsewhere, it is obvious the Pre won't be the only webOS device, we'll probably see up to 3 consumer models, and perhaps even a business range.

The advantage Palm has, then, is that it can have a big product launch 3 times a year, instead of launching on a high like Apple, and then having sales tailing off for the rest of the year. Also, Apple still hasn't bothered to go after business customers, yet as far as I have heard, even with the Pre, Sprinthas set up a corporate/business channel to buy them from, let alone future business oriented devices.

[Aridon]

Good article. Look lets face a few facts, Palm made its own bed here and some of the decision they made are, at the very least questionable.

1. OS is pretty bare bones right now

2. Synergy is sort of fubar with the way in syncs. For a selling point of the phone you would think they would have taken the extra week to get this right out of the box but they didn't.

3. 8gb? Seriously, memory is cheap, the Iphone is prepping 16gb and 32 gb versions no reason we should be stuck with 8bg at $199. 16gb should have been the minimum.

4. Who exactly are they targeting with the release? The fat middle that wouldn't know multi-tasking if it sat on their face? Certainly not media users since they only include 8gb and most hard core phone users are used to more memory either through SD expansion or higher internal memory.

So what exactly does the Pre do better? It Multi-tasks, thats really about it. You also have to give up some things to get there.

There are also lots of wild cards like the SDK and how closed it will end up being to most developers. As it stands now the Palm SDK is more limiting than Apple and we give them crap every day for it here.

Bottom line is Palm could have had a home run on their hands but their decisions are forcing a more even game and there is no reason for it. Their mistake.

[Kyusaku]

I really disagree on its opinion on developers. Palm has made a huge effort to connect with the developer community a lot stronger and quicker than Apple did with the iPhone. While the actual number of developers that are already behind WebOS is still unknown due to NDA, I feel Palm is making a valiant effort while trying to hang on to their NDA until launch.

[no1smartphone]

I think you missed my point. Apple I doubt will ever truly enable multi-tasking on their O/s as they want to earn an income stream from their Push service.

What really gets me irritated is that we are nearly at the end of our first decade in the 21st century and Apple still act as if we are in the last millenium with their solutions to tech problems and then they are feted for their elegant solutions.

[notabun]

I have a BB Storm which multitasks but not efficiently. My biggest grip is that you cannot open more than 1 browser window/instance at a time.

Also, you can't really have more than 1 instance of any given app open at once.

[northy014]

Originally Posted by no1smartphone

I think you missed my point. Apple I doubt will ever truly enable multi-tasking on their O/s as they want to earn an income stream from their Push service.

What really gets me irritated is that we are nearly at the end of our first decade in the 21st century and Apple still act as if we are in the last millenium with their solutions to tech problems and then they are feted for their elegant solutions.

Just think, when Apple do it, it'll be completely different from all the ways people have done it before .

I also think that even when it becomes fairly apparent that people want multitasking on their smartphones, it''ll be a while before Apple actually gets around to doing it. After all, their push notifications system has taken them about 9 months to develop, and the server capacity required will be enormous. I can't imagine that they'd just throw away this investment.

[cardfan]

Originally Posted by Aridon

4. Who exactly are they targeting with the release? The fat middle that wouldn't know multi-tasking if it sat on their face? Certainly not media users since they only include 8gb and most hard core phone users are used to more memory either through SD expansion or higher internal memory.

So what exactly does the Pre do better? It Multi-tasks, thats really about it. You also have to give up some things to get there.
[/b]

The "fat middle," as palm defines it, is this:

On Jan. 8, Palm (NSDQ: PALM) is expected to use the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas as the venue to unveil its new operating system, code-named Nova, which is expected to fulfill the “fat middle of the market,” BusinessWeek reports. The fat middle means the new operating system is expected to bridge the gap between Apple’s iPhone, which is mostly fun, and Research In Motion’s Blackberry, which is down to business. Palm’s CEO Ed Colligan told BusinessWeek: “People’s work and personal lives are melding.”

These aren't dumbphone users. Although Palm is sure to get its share of existing dumbphone users at Sprint now (think Instinct)& other carriers later.

Palm is going after all smartphone users. Multitasking/more open for the iphone users. Capacitive touch/browser for the WM users. Same for RIM customers.

In essence, that is the "fat middle" The wide area between strictly ipod media oriented users and phones that have specific enterprise features.

[Mikest]

I think the author makes some good points but misses the market. To win Palm doesn't need to dominate the smart phone market they just need to be competitive. As long as the phone does everything I need it to do and Sprint and or Palm dont fold over the next two years Im a happy camper.

[ksom]

Originally Posted by no1smartphone

Five Reasons the Palm Pre Won't Prevail - Business Center - PC World

4. The ability to run multiple applications at the same time will, over time, be important. But, it's a feature most other smartphones, except the iPhone, already possess. By the time multitasking becomes a must-have feature for the masses, Apple will have it.

That's the key issue.

Multi-tasking is lost on the masses. The ones who could name the 3 idol judges but not the 3 branches of government.

The point is valid, however the Pre's strength is not just to do multitasking, but how it is done. Yes, every Smartphone will eventually have multitasking, but how quickly can they revamp their OS interface to do this kind of app switching is questionable. In fact, iPhone is probably the closest to Pre on this. I won't be surprised that iPhone's next "innovation" looks like the cards on Pre. Apple may give it a much cooler name, but I really don't see any better solutions.