This could hurt Verizon Palm Pre and the Verizon Droid, but here is the rumor from CNNMoney:
Verizon has made it pretty clear that it would cut a deal with Apple (AAPL), were it not for a couple of impediments: 1) the contract that makes AT&T (T) the iPhone’s exclusive U.S. carrier, and 2) the fact that Verizon’s network (based on CDMA2000 technology) is incompatible with Apple’s smartphone (which uses W-CDMA (UMTS)).

The first roadblock — AT&T’s contract — is set to expire next year, according to an interview chairman Randall Stephenson gave USA Today more than a year ago.

The second barrier could also disappear were Apple to build a new iPhone that is compatible with both AT&T and Verizon’s networks.

Last week, AppleInsider reported on rumors that Apple may be doing just that. Its source was a leaked OTR Global report, based on unnamed sources in Apple’s Taiwanese supply chain, that said Apple was making a “worldmode” phone using a new hybrid chip from Qualcomm (QCOM).

On Wednesday, a second source for the rumor emerged, this one with a date attached. According to GigaOm’s Colin Gibbs, Northeast Securities has issued a research note, based again on supply chain sources, that says Apple will launch a W-CDMA/CDMA2000-enabled iPhone through Verizon by the summer of 2010.

This assumes that Apple and Verizon can cut a mutually satisfactory deal. But judging from the tone of bitter resignation coming from AT&T executives lately, it sounds like Steve Jobs and Randall Stephenson may have finally come to terms.

No tags

From Pre Central :
Merrill Lynch has released a rosy assessment of Palm’s prospects, reiterating their “Buy” stance on the stock with a $20 target price, following a meeting with the company’s management team this morning that included CEO Jon Rubinstein, CFO Doug Jeffries, and IR head Teri Klein. While the investment firm anticipates that the stock will remain volatile, they remain optimistic of Palm’s outook:

Palm plans substantial channel expansion in 2010 — that’s more carriers to you. Verizon, as you might expect, was mentioned.
Palm has a growing ecosystem, with the launch of the App Catalog due this December, and innovative distribution models like “click on a URL, get an app” that will help to bolster the interest of developers.
The Pixi is set to make a splash starting this weekend when it launches on Sprint, priced at $99 and targeting a primarily younger demographic.
Palm has a strong balance sheet (bolstered after their secondary stock offering back in September), with over $570 million cash on hand to co-invest with carriers in marketing programs and R&D.
Palm has sufficient resources to execute on its current business plan.
Even though the smartphone market is becoming increasingly crowded, Merrill Lynch is confident that Palm has the stamina and can maintain the differentiation needed to succeed.

We’re also pleased to hear that Palm and Sprint are planning a “new advertising campaign.” While we won’t comment on on the stock price stuff directly, we are hoping the report will fend off any “Palm is dead” stories for a little while.

No tags

The Pixi, the Palm Pre’s diminutive smart-phone sibling, arrives at market a few days from now (Nov. 15), and despite some potential pricing confusion with the Pre, analysts expect it to be another catalyst for the company’s comeback. In a note to clients today, Bank of America/Merrill Lynch (BAC) analyst Vivek Arya said Palm (PALM) is well-poised for growth in 2010.

“Despite increasing smartphone competition, Palm can maintain differentiation and remains well-positioned to launch its products with multiple new Tier-1 carriers in early 2010 by which time it should have a robust apps catalog,” Arya wrote. “While we expect the stock to remain volatile, the recent sell-off creates an interesting buying opportunity, in our opinion, for a company with an attractive platform, selling into a high-growth market, and at a compelling valuation.”

Interestingly, Arya notes that Palm’s webOS application ecosystem, initially something of a disappointment, is growing a bit more rapidly these days with between 50 and 100 apps being added to Palm’s App Catalog each week. He expects growth to continue with the debut of a new feature enabling customers to download apps simply by clicking on a URL. Arya believes this will dramatically improve discovery of apps and attract more attention from developers. His conclusion: With a more robust App Catalog and two attractive handsets, Palm is well-positioned to launch its webOS line with multiple new Tier-1 carriers like Verizon (VZ) in early 2010.

[Source: All Things Digital]

Verizon · WebOS

The second coming of Palm is in full force as they have just launched the Pre in the U.K, Germany and Spain. Here in Canada, even though Bell just dropped the price of the Pre down another $50 we understand that sales are strong. Could there be reasoning behind the price drop though, other than their HSPA network? We think so…

Back in July we wrote a story about how the Palm Pre was only exclusively available to Bell for 6 months. We had a document called Bell Strategy that said: “The Palm Pre will expand and strengthen Bell’s smartphone category and will break new ground in the fiercely competitive smartphone market. Bell will be the second carrier worldwide (after Sprint) to sell the Palm Pre, with exclusivity for 6 months. Bell anticipates the Canadian market will strongly embrace this product with strong interest, which will boost overall smartphone sales.”

The Canadian market did embrace the Pre and the 6 months is coming to an end. Although we’ve said it before, we are now hearing that TELUS, the only carrier to have 3 networks (CDMA, MiKE, HSPA) will officially be bringing on both the Palm Pre (HSPA) and the new Palm Pixi in January. No word on pricing or exact January launch dates yet, we’ll find out more when we get closer to the date.

Source: Mobile Syrup

No tags

We’ve already seen a quick Palm Pixi unboxing and hands-on video, but we’re guessing most folks are looking for a bit more than that in the lead-up to launch day. Thankfully, YouTube user stayfly2407 has come through with a video that, for the first time, clearly shows the Pixi running webOS 1.3.1, which may or may not be the version the phone actually ships with — it was only just recently seeded to developers. The video unfortunately doesn’t show any new features associated with this version, however, but it does seem to be speedy enough even in spite of the Pixi’s slower processor.

[source: Engadget]

No tags

Deficient! That’s what Verizon has prefers to call it. If you haven’t yet seen the new advertisements put out by Verizon in time for the Christmas season, you may check them out on Verizon’s YouTube page. It seems like Verizon has gone the whole hog attacking the iPhone! In fact, it’s the iPhone carrier AT&T that has come under major fire.

Read more: http://www.devicemag.com/2009/11/08/verizon-christmas-ads-place-iphone-in-island-of-misfit-toys/#ixzz0WNFlXvkD

No tags

Lost in the recent deluge of smart-phone news — Apple’s iPhone store hitting 100,000 applications, and the launches of the new Droid phone and the BlackBerry Storm, among other things — have been the efforts of longtime handheld gadget maker Palm.
That’s unfortunate, because I still consider Palm’s webOS software, which debuted in June on its Pre, to be the most elegant and easiest-to-use smart-phone operating system available.
Like Apple’s iPhone operating system, webOS allows users to interact with it via a number of touch-screen gestures such as pinching and swiping, but webOS takes the concept further, using gestures in places where the iPhone would rely on hard-to-click virtual buttons.
Like Google’s Android operating system, webOS will run multiple applications at once, but it makes closing or switching between those programs much simpler.
Fortunately, Palm has some news of its own that could help boost the prospects of both webOS and of the company. I’m just hoping people pay attention — and that it’s not already too late.
Next month, the company will essentially relaunch its application store, potentially boosting the number of programs users will find there.

Read the full story at the Mercury News

WebOS

The Pixi launch is on November 15th which is only one week away and Wirefly was able to get an unboxing video up pretty early… The Pixi has a significantly slower processor and architecture but in this video it seems to run much faster and smoother than the current version of WebOS on the more powerful Palm Pre.

Still no word about Palm Pixi on Verizon.

[source: prethinking]

No tags

Robert Scoble writes why the iPhone and the Palm Pre are better than the Motorola Droid. Here are some of his points:

Last night my friend Luke Kilpatrick came over and we compared the Droid to the Palm Pre and iPhone. He’s a bit biased toward the Palm, and ran the first Palm Pre Dev Camp but he’s also a mobile freak and has an iPhone and an HTC Hero, which runs an older version of the Android OS. Plus we get together with other people at the Ritz and compare phones regularly and I know he is fair and knows his stuff.

Why did I buy the Droid when I’m a happy iPhone? Because for the past two days Dave Winer has been praising the Droid and because I want to stay up to date on what’s going on on the Android OS. It’s one thing to try a phone for a couple of minutes, it’s a whole nother thing to force yourself to use it.
…
Anyway, I could keep going. I’ll keep it at least a week and push myself to use it. The voice quality is so much better that I might just use it as my phone and keep the iPhone for other things. I’m fortunate that I can afford to do that, but if I were forced into picking one, today, I’d pick the iPhone without hesitating and I’d recommend the same to everyone.

I told Dave Winer that it looks a lot like Windows 3.1. The Mac back then was way better, but we all know that Apple ended up in 1995 with a small market share compared to Windows 95. The thing is, the Droid is Windows 3.1. It is showing the momentum is shifting but now Google has to ship their metaphorical equivalent of Windows 95. It isn’t this phone.

iPhone · motorola droid

Just weeks after Palm’s Pre sunk to CAD $149.95 on Bell, the outfit’s first-ever webOS phone has now stooped to just CAD $99.95. Anyone tossing out guesses on how long it takes Sprint to follow suit (and embarrass the Pixi)?

[source: Asia News]

Related articles by Zemanta

• Palm Pre price keeps sinking on Bell, down to $100 (engadget.com)

No tags