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My opinion is that since there are more phones in the US than there are people, I think WebOS will find it's niche.
I don't understand the comparisons to the other giants. You can still have a successful company if you're not in the top 3, 4, or 5. There's a lot more to being successful besides selling the most or having the biggest market share. MS, Apple, and Google have virtually unlimited resources, so Palm just has to adjust their business model to account for the fact they will never be in the league of those three. I believe this is part of the reason they chose Sprint as the exclusive carrier for WebOS exclusivity. Focus on a smaller carrier and get it right before going to the big boys and risk getting buried by sheer volume. Also, in the middle of the worst economic time in history, choose the carrier with the cheapest plan.
Also, they chose to make their flagship device design based on what people felt were shortcomings on other manufacture's phones: no physical keyboard/keyboard too large, locked down OS, limited browser, phone itself too large/ugly, no interchangeable battery, intrusive notifications, and I'm sure there are more. And yes, all those things I mentioned are specific reasons for me that I chose the Pre, but I know I'm not alone. Is the Pre perfect? Nah, but neither is any other phone.
I don't have an doctorate in business, but I think Palm played the best card they could given their situation. 1.3.5 is bringing WebOS closer to it's potential; is it too late/not enough, we'll see. I suppose in the next month or so we'll have the full picture of WebOS and see how it stacks up. To me, 1.3.5 is an indication that Palm is ironing out the backend of WebOS and we may be close to having native support for the patches some of us love. It's looking more and more that those native features were intended, but instead disabled in fears of bogging the phone down past the point of frustrating operation...
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