Market research firm IDC has for years been compiling data on the best-selling smartphones in the US. While their numbers from the second quarter of 2009 ranked the Palm Pre at #8, in the following three months the Pre moved up to #6. The jump was likely spurred on by a number of factors, including increased supply and price cuts at Sprint and resellers, as well as the fact that the Pre was only on the market for one third of the second quarter.
It will be interesting to see the top ten list for Q1 2010, since by then the Pre will have launched on Verizon.

[Source: Pre Central]

Advertising and Marketing · Business · International Data Corporation · MarketResearch · PalmPre · Smartphone · Sprint · Sprint Nextel

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Palm may prove to be Verizon’s best hope if the Droid line doesn’t bear fruit, Kaufman Bros analyst Shaw Wu said in a note today. He points to contacts within the cell industry and supply chain that suggest Verizon will carry one or more of Palm’s webOS phones, such as the Pre or Pixi, sometime in 2010. Sales of both the Motorola Droid and HTC’s Droid Eris have purportedly been “somewhat disappointing” and may lead to Verizon using Palm to bolster its smartphone catalog.
Adoption of the smartphones could happen as early as the first half of the year as Sprint’s exclusive isn’t expected to last past 2009. Verizon’s wireless chief Lowell McAdam has also signaled a desire to attach Palm’s new devices to the network.

Wu adds that Palm has advantages that can’t necessarily be matched by Android. Although Google’s platform has multi-manufacturer support, Palm can directly tie software to new hardware features and supports full multi-touch where Android 2.0 only has limited recognition. Accordingly, Palm can produce a more cohesive experience even with more limited resources.

Claims of sub-par Droid sales are new and may partly contradict rough predictions that more than a quarter million have bought the Droid in its first week. While a fraction of Apple’s iPhone 3GS launch numbers even in the US, the Droid is thought to have had a better launch than the Pre and T-Mobile’s myTouch 3G, both of which are estimated to have moved about 60,000 units each in their opening weekends.

Barclays Capital analyst Amir Rozwadowski partly backed Wu’s analysis in his own note today. He warns that demand for the Pre is “tempered” this fall and that Palm’s limited recognition in Europe won’t help the company but stresses that the smartphone designer is in a stable position with little immediate risk. Rozwadowski also expects Palm to reach Verizon and says it could be a “critical part” of the company’s strategy to branch out to Verizon, possibly with a launch for the Pre in February.

[Source: Electronista]

Apple · Google · HTC Corporation · iPhone · Lowell McAdam · Smartphone · T-Mobile · Verizon

Consumer Reports recently released their annual top products list, which had 398 items. The Palm Pre is on the smartphone section. The Pre was given a score of 67, while the first place had a 73.
The low score was taken by the BlackBerry Pearl 8130 on Sprint, with a 59. That puts the Palm Pre right in the middle, which by the way, has the old sticker price of $200. If they had use the newer price, the Pre could have gained some extra points.

[Source: My Pre]

Blackberry · BlackBerry Pearl · Handhelds · Palm OS · PalmPre · Smartphone · Sprint · Video Games

Saul Hansell’s blog post for the NY Times talks about Palm’s chances, here are some highlights:
In a land of cellphone giants, Palm is a mouse. Palm is tiny compared with Apple, Research in Motion, Samsung, Google, Microsoft and Nokia, which are battling to control the future of smartphones.
…
While no one expected Palm’s sales would rival the sales of iPhones or BlackBerrys — and they have not — developers have not rushed to write applications for the phone as they have for the iPhone and Android phones.
…
Jon Rubinstein, Palm’s chief executive who was the top Apple engineer and the first head of its iPod division, said in an interview that Palm does not need to be as big as its rivals to thrive. His former employer, after all, was long able to carve out a lucrative niche in the computer business.

“One of the key things we need to do as a company is to get to scale,” he said. “We need to bring on more carriers and more regions.”

Analysts expect that Palm will sell an upgraded version of the Pre with Verizon early next year and add AT&T later in the year. It sells phones in six countries and is steadily expanding to others in Europe and North America.
…
Mr. Rubinstein said Palm would never need as many applications as the iPhone. “We are focused on quality over quantity,” he said.

Palm is still testing its app store, called the App Catalog, with a small group of developers. It will open to anyone who wants to write an app next month — six months after the Pre was introduced.

Mr. Rubinstein says he expects developers will write for Palm devices, in part because Palm’s operating system, called webOS, is based largely on the same languages used to design Web sites. Android, by contrast, is based on Sun’s Java language, and Apple uses a variation of the C computer programming language.

He discounts Android’s chances because, he says, it does not yet have mass appeal. “Android, and the Droid in particular, are designed for the techie audience,” Mr. Rubinstein said. “We are doing a more general product that helps people live their lives seamlessly.”

While Android is getting a lot of attention because it has attracted so many phone makers, those companies, Mr. Rubinstein, argues “have to depend on the kindness of strangers” — meaning Google — for their software.

“The companies that will deliver the best products are the ones that integrate the whole experience — the hardware, the software and the services — and aren’t getting one piece from here and one piece from there and trying to bolt it all together,” he said.
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“The Palm Pixi is the only low-end smartphone with a new operating system,” said Mr. Kuittinen. “That is fairly impressive.”

He estimates Palm may be able to sell 10 million handsets next year, about 5 percent of the smartphone market. That assumes the company can get more carriers in the United States and Europe to sell Palm phones.

Apple · Google · iPhone · Microsoft · Nokia · Palm · Research in Motion · WebOS

CrunchGear revealed Radio Shack Black Friday ad and they will have the:
Palm Pixi Cell Phone (w/2-Year Agreement) – $99.99
Palm Pre Cell Phone (w/2-Year Agreement) – $99.99

Cell Phones · Cell Phones and Driving · CrunchGear · Palm Pixi Cell Phone · Palm Pre Cell Phone · Radio Shack Black Friday · RadioShack · Science and Technology

webOS 1.3.1 is now available on the Palm Pre and will be available on the Palm Pixi.

• Yahoo! now appears as a Calendar/Contacts/instant messaging synchronization account.
• You can forward a text or multimedia message by tapping the message > Forward.
• A new option is available for restarting the phone: press and hold power > Power > Restart. The prior restart method (Device Info > Reset Options > Restart) is still available.
• Widescreen videos (including YouTube) now display in widescreen mode on the phone by default, instead of being cropped.
• If you tap to play a YouTube video embedded on a web page, the YouTube application launches and the video plays in the app.
• You can select a unique ringtone for new message alerts: Open Messaging > application menu > Preferences & Accounts > Sound > Ringtone.
• While listening to a song with album art displayed, you can tap the screen below the art to display a playback slider. Dragging the slider jumps forward or backward in the song.

[Source: Engadget]

Engadget · PalmPixi · PalmPre · Video · Web page · WebOS · yahoo · YouTube

Palm shares are on the rise again with renewed speculation that cell phone giant Nokia is interested in acquiring the Sunnyvale company.

Palm’s shares have risen about 9 percent today to about $12.50 a share. It’s unclear that there is anything new to the Nokia rumor, which has surfaced before.

In late September, Palm’s shares hit an almost two-year high when the Nokia talk surfaced. Palm’s stock peaked above $17 a share before subsiding.

There is differing opinion about whether it makes sense for Nokia to buy Palm. Nokia already owns a commanding lead in the global smart phone market with its devices based on the Symbian operating system. It’s also developing a new Linux-based operating system called Maemo that could vault it into the smart phone market in the U.S.

Nokia, however, might see the much lauded Palm webOS as a way to jump ahead, especially in the U.S. where Nokia is a minor presence. The Palm webOS is a very good modern operating system that, with the right support, is a legitimate challenger to the iPhone OS.

So, we’ll see if Palm can hold out any longer. They just released the Palm Pixi, the follow up to the Palm Pre. And Palm is slated to release the Palm Pre on more U.S. carriers early next year including Verizon Wireless. With the iPhone and BlackBerry still strong and Android coming on in a hurry, Palm may need the backing of a bigger company to compete.

[source: SF Gate]

Nokia

While Flash will not be included in webOS 1.3.1 (despite the groundwork currently being laid), there does seem to be a timetable out there. Adobe delivered Flash 10.1 for mobile to manufacturers last month, and now they want you to know that it should land on webOS devices in the first half of next year.

Users have reported getting the above message when they click on links to Flash videos or got to Adobe’s Flash website. Amusingly, iPhone users are also greeted with a message when they visit the Flash page, though it’s not quite as encouraging.

[source: Pre Central]

Adobe Flash · WebOS

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.

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