Woz Carries Verizon Pre, Jobs Offers Praise for Palm

July 16, 2010 by Leave a Comment

By now, you’ve undoubtedly heard about the problem Apple has been having with the so-called death grip. Steve Wozniak, one of the original founders of Apple, said he was able to duplicate the problem. His solution, carry a Verizon Palm Pre Plus as a backup.

If you can afford it, carry a second Verizon phone for backup. Another option is to carry a Verizon mifi and rely on Skype on your iPhone. I have used this mifi technique to rescue my own, and others’, iPhones on occasion. If you buy a Verizon Palm Pre, you get free mifi on it so that is possible the best ‘compromise’ solution, to carry a Verizon Palm Pre along with your AT&T iPhone 4.

Today’s Apple press conference surrounding Antennagate saw none other than Steve Jobs offering up a compliment to Palm.

“And we’re pretty good at making software, we showed that in the iPod… other people are good at it too, like Palm, but we brought great software to the smartphone space.”

There you have it Palmaniacs. See, Apple’s not so bad.

via MobileCrunch and Engadget

Filed Under: News, Palm Tagged With: , , ,

Apple Tried to Buy Palm?

July 15, 2010 by Leave a Comment

According to the Business Insider, Apple was one of the companies looking to purchase Palm. Other companies that were interested were Google and RIM. A source familiar with the negotiations claims Apple was interested in Palm for their huge library of intellectual property. Surprisingly, Apple was supposedly ok with funding Palm’s operations. The source also said RIM had the deal “in its hands” and worked hard to blow it”. Google wanted Palm since they though Apple might want it.

Sounds to us like the best deal for Palm and it’s users was the deal with HP.

Filed Under: HP, News, Palm Tagged With: , ,

comScore reports: Palm losing ground, but don’t panic

July 9, 2010 by Leave a Comment

comScore yesterday released their quarterly score (Feb-May 2010) for the US mobile subscriber marketshare, which shows that Palm have lost a small percentage of smartphone subscribers. However, the percentage decrease is nothing to be too alarmed or indeed shocked about; there was a 0.6% decline from February’s figure of 5.4%, to May’s figure of 4.8%.

The report does however state that most smartphone platforms are still continuing to gain subscribers, although just losing market share to Google’s Android platform – which is the only one to have increased market share percentage this quarter. Which, lets be honest, is pretty understandable considering the sheer amount of handsets manufacturers are putting out there for the platform.

Here is the table which shows the results, and a link to comScore’s Press Release

Top Smartphone Platforms
3 Month Avg. Ending May 2010 vs. 3 Month Avg. Ending Feb. 2010
Total U.S. Age 13+
Source: comScore MobiLens
Share (%) of Smartphone Subscribers
Feb-10 May-10 Point Change
Total Smartphone Subscribers 100.0% 100.0% N/A
RIM 42.1% 41.7% -0.4
Apple* 25.4% 24.4% -1.0
Microsoft 15.1% 13.2% -1.9
Google 9.0% 13.0% 4.0
Palm 5.4% 4.8% -0.6
Filed Under: News Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Palm Pre and iPhone 3GS Top Mindshare Study

September 24, 2009 by Leave a Comment

An independant research group has released a report titled, ” Signature Smartphones: Gaining Mindshare in Order to Gain Market Share”. The study looks at a number of factors where it relates to consumers mindset regarding smartphones available on the market. The study looks at three components and rates the phones to gain insight into how a product is percieved by consumers. Of course, increased mindshare often results in increased sales and consumers willingness to pay a premium for a product. So how is Palm doing? The Palm Pre, despite being on the market for just a few months, ranked second only to the Apple iPhone 3GS. This is impressive given the fact that the Palm Pre has only been on the market for barely 4 months.

palmpre-iphone

The three components used to guage the results:

  1. Belief that the phone is smart
  2. Belief that the phone is hip/cool
  3. Belief that it will make them more productive

For all that’s been said about the “creepy” Palm Pre girl, the marketing folks at Palm should be lauded for a job well done. They’ve managed to place second to a company that has vast resources, an App Store with over 75,000 applications and a product that has been on the market for a number of years. If they accomplish this within a number of months, what will we be talking about next year at this time?

[via Engadget]

Filed Under: webOS Phones Tagged With: , , , ,

Steve Jobs Asked Palm Not To Hire Apple Employees

August 20, 2009 by Leave a Comment

Two years ago, Apple had turned the collective smartphone market on it’s ear with the release of the Apple iPhone. At the time, Palm was struggling to get their next generation OS project on track and dealing with an aging product line. In June of 2007, Apple launched the iPhone. To help with this revolutionary new product, Apple had hired 2% of Palm’s employees, clearly to gain insight into years of working with smartphones. Palm had just hired Jon Rubinstein, who is well known for his contributions to the iPod”. It was at this juncture that Steve Jobs reportedly reached out to Palm and asked them to refrain from hiring each other’s staff.

fightclub

Palm’s CEO Ed Colligan, to his credit, refused and in so many words said,

“Your proposal that we agree that neither company will hire the other’s employees, regardless of the individual’s desires, is not only wrong, it is likely illegal.”

Bloomberg states that Jobs said, “We must do whatever we can to stop this.” He went on to say that Apple had more patents and money than Palm, if Palm were to consider a legal fight.

So why are these coming to light two years after the fact? Bloomberg apparently received the communications from a Palm spokesperson, in a move that many see as posturing as the US Department of Justice investigates collusion practices between Apple, Google and others. Clearly, there is no collusion between Palm and Apple. This latest volley won’t curry Palm any favor with Jobs, so we can expect the battle to rage on.

[via Engadget]

Filed Under: Palm Tagged With: , , , , ,

New Family of Palm Smartphones “Unlike Anything”

December 12, 2008 by Leave a Comment

Palm is once again creating buzz, only this time it surrounds what every Palm user has been waiting for and that’s Palm new-ness. With Apple’s iPhone dominating the consumer market and RIM leading the US smartphone market overall, Palm’s announcement is seen by many as the last stand from the company that started the entire smartphone craze years ago.

The announcement on January 8th will not be a new color for the Centro or even a Sprint Treo Pro. No, this event is much bigger. Private equity firm Elevation Partners has invested over $325 million into Palm and has also brought in new talent, plenty of which has come from Apple. As someone who remembers the dark days of Apple, the similarities between the two companies are striking. They are even modeling their plan of a comeback on Apple, where marquee products led to financial success. Roger McNamee, one of the chief financeirs and founders of Elevation Partners, says the products will be different than anything on the market. iPhones excel at entertainment, while RIM is best at email. McNamee says Palm will create devices that will "help consumers meld work and play". 

Palm has generated buzz once again, but can they deliver? As a Palm user, what are you hoping for come January 8th? Let us know what you think in our comments section. Be sure to check out Everything Treo on January 8th for live coverage of the event.

via Business Week

Filed Under: Palm Tagged With: , , ,