Comments on: Who Can Save Palm?

By: Francisco Kattan

Francisco Kattan — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 06:35:33 +0000

Great post Michael. Clearly the lack of a strong developer ecosystem is hurting Palm as you stated. Palm needs to build one or else…

Do you believe it is too late for Palm to build its ecosystem? (and therefore will have to be sold, as stated in your post)

In theory Palm has a larger potential market of developers because they are going after web/scripting type developers, not the more formal C++/Java type programmers. However they got to a very late start and they could run out of cash before they can execute.

Palm is also hurting by lack of distribution. Doing an exclusive deal with ailing Sprint did not help their cause. Will their new Pre/Pixi operator relationships help offset the rapidly falling revenues from the aging Treo? This will determine the length of their runway (and whether or not they will have time to build the ecosystem).

By: Jane Chambers

Jane Chambers — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 18:02:24 +0000

I would buy a Palm if Verizon still had it. I love my centro and hate to lose the organizational capabilities it gives me. According to those at Verizon, there is not another phone that will let me do what I enjoy most about this phone. My very upset to give up this phone that does it all for me.

By: Sander

Sander — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 21:01:22 +0000

For some peculiar reason people keep believing that web-enabled apps are the future, but up until now nobody has managed to make it work. This includes Apple with their pre-App Store widget stuff nobody used so they changed their minds and released an SDK and created the App store. This includes Nokia with their widgets, which they have been pushing for years now, and which nobody is using.

With this in mind, why would anybody want to buy Palm?

By: Sefi

Sefi — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 08:53:59 +0000

Quick updates:
– Samsung announces Bada (www.bada.com)
– NOK for PALM rumors (see: http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2009/11/13/palm-shrs-rally-on-speculation-nokia-could-bid/)

By: David Schwartzman

David Schwartzman — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 21:48:54 +0000

Great analysis! It will be thrilling to learn within some time that RIM acquired Palm after they read this blog

By: Michael Vakulenko

Michael Vakulenko — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:59:43 +0000

Kartik,

This is certainly a possibility. There are other powerful and more mature software platforms available for LG/Samsung, Dell, Acer and such. Their biggest challenge is how to differentiate with these platforms in order to maintain healthy profit margins on device sales. Apps and Internet services are strongest differentiators now (the ecosystem). WebOS is weak in this perspective.

By: Michael Vakulenko

Michael Vakulenko — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:51:33 +0000

Thanks for comments!

lordhong,

Yes, BB uses proprietary OS for its platform. However experience shows that it is certainly doable to port legacy software to Linux OS.

RIM has other interesting challenge. RIM insisted to write their own low-level radio firmware for UMTS/EDGE. Because of that RIM is stucked with older generation XScale apps processor which is integrated with the cellular baseband in the same chip (Marvell’s, ex-Intel’s, Tavor chip.)

Other platforms use more powerful app processors based on ARM11 (e.g., iPhone, Android G1 and G2) and Cortex (iPhone 3GS, Pre, Droid) cores.

By: Mobile Application Development

Mobile Application Development — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:16:32 +0000

Solid Analysis . I will keep it for future reference!

By: Karthik

Karthik — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 04:00:38 +0000

Excellent analysis!

Why not someone like LG/Samsung – who do not have a powerful software platform but have loads of money? Or, for that matter, someone like Acer or Dell, that have money and want a foothold in the smartphone market?

By: lordhong

lordhong — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:58:53 +0000

Great analysis! However, from a technical point of view, as you also mentioned, webOS runs on top of Linux. I believe BlackBerry OS runs on proprietary hardware configuration, and not Linux OS underneath. How easy or hard is it for RIM to integrate webOS architecture (based on Linux, embedded java application server, etc.) with their own hardware configuration and proprietary OS (which happens to run a JVM and supports J2ME APIs).

By acquiring TorchMobile and pushing out widget framework, RIM clearly has some goals in the mobile web technologies. Integrating webOS could be nice, but they don’t necessarily need to.