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

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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

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]

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

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They tried it before with Windows Mobile, but now Phandroid asks should Palm go all Android:

With the explosion of interest in the Android Operating System and the new influx of Android powered devices could it already be too late for WebOS to catch up? It is not without precedence for Palm to open up their devices to other operating systems (they have let Windows Mobile on earlier devices) – so why not do the same thing with Android?
Right now developers are faced with the choice to produce their applications for either the App Store, the Android Market, WebOS Market or for the Blackberry Market – at least so far as who to produce their application for first before potentially porting it over to another store. Obviously the App store has been given a head start, but with the controls Apple has placed on their market and with the continuing saturation of their market, more and more developers are turning their sights to the quickly growing Android OS. With the App Store and the Android Market dominating, WebOS appears to have become the loser in this equation. The solution would be to use their solid hardware but add Android to their devices.

android · WebOS

Starting Nov. 15, Verizon plans to double its early termination fee (ETF) — to $350 — for customers who end their cellphone contracts early. The fee, arriving just in time for the holidays, applies to customers who have a smart phone or other advanced device on a one or two year contract.

The penalty will decrease by $10 for each month of service completed. If a customer completes five months of service, the penalty would be reduced to $300, for example.

The fee, the highest ever imposed by a major carrier, “is insane,” says Joel Kelsey of Consumers Union, the USA’s largest consumer group. “There’s no justification” for a fee that high, he says. “It’s punitive to customers who decide to leave Verizon early.”

Not so says Verizon. “This has to do with the cost we pay for the device,” says spokesman Jim Gerace. Verizon customers, he notes, can buy a subsidized Blackberry for as little as $99. What Verizon pays to Blackberry-maker Research In Motion, however, “is far north of that,” he says.

The wireless industry has long subsidized devices to hold down retail costs, then charged customers a penalty if they exited their contracts early. The standard ETF is currently around $175 to $200. It was established years ago, when expensive smart phones, netbooks and other advanced devices didn’t exist, Gerace says.

Gerace says ETFs on other Verizon wireless devices, such as standard cellphones, won’t change. The current ETF is $175, and it decreases by $5 a month for each month of the contract’s term that is completed.

[source: USA Today]

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Jim Suva, analyst at Citigroup, expressed his opinion regarding the Motorola Droid and its impact on other handsets’ sales.
According to Jim Suva, Motorola has launched one of the best offerings, referring to the Android 2.0-based Droid. At the same time, this handset could impact in a major manner on other launched devices of the same type. Directly involved could be the Palm Pre and the RIM’s BlackBerry Storm2.
The Droid happens to be very fitted to work with built-in Microsoft Exchange support and benefits from the largest and most aggressive promoting campaign in recent history. Verizon has launched this ad campaign, including a billboard in Times Square, directly targeting the Droid’s most powerful competitor, the iPhone handset from Apple.
Analysts think that Verizon even minimized the importance of another intensively mediated device, the BlackBerry Storm2, by scheduling the presentation of the Droid the same day as the Storm2’s shipping and downplaying the RIM’s phone for the rest of this year.
Citigroup analysts do not think, however, that this dramatic promotion of the Motorola’s Droid would have a significant impact on iPhone’s sales, Apple’s device having earned a solid position on the market.

[Source: HTLounge]

Blackberry · motorola droid

Gadgetell is trying to decide if the Palm Pre has saved Palm:

The successful launch of the Palm Pre, Palm’s darling of a phone running the “revolutionary” webOS was supposed to save Palm. Launched on June 6 in the US, the Pre was off to a fast start, depending on who you asked. The Pre continues to be sold on one network, Sprint, while it’s application catalog fills out. The question now becomes, did the Pre save Palm?

That was the question poised to me by our Robert Nelson who was standing next to me when the phone was announced at CES last year. Both of us left with a sense of hope and excitement about the new phone and about the webOS. Where are we now?

Robert says, “To me, I think it has gone stale. It almost seems that Palm is back on life support. But at the same time, I like the Pre (of course, that could just be the fan boy in me).”

My take is two parts: I agree with Robert the gloss has faded a bit on the Pre. I attribute that to an unappealing design, at least for me. I am edging closer to despising key’d phones, the split second it takes to slide out the keypad or worse, reorient the device is far too long for me. The Pre doesn’t live on the now network, it lives on the, wait for it, slide out, network.

So it’s clear I am not a big fan of the hardware on the Pre. That’s a personal call and one that I may be on my own with it; I can deal with that. I have the same problems with the Moto Droid and the slew of Android phones with slide out full-size keyboards. A phone store clerk explained it to me like this: the teens and 20 year olds love the slide out, the 30 and up crowd digs the slider phones. Test that one out, I’ve found it to be a decent predictor.

Part two is this, while the Pre hasn’t saved Palm, the webOS will. The OS is fun, simple, brilliant in some ways. I think the Pixi will do well, assuming it gets off Sprint in record time. I think the phone after Pixi will do even better. There is much competing operating systems could learn from webOS. While it still could use some polishing around the edges, it works and works well.

There is no question in my mind that the webOS can compete with Android for most people. Competing with the iPhone OS isn’t the problem, it’s the Santa’s sack of apps that is getting harder to get around.

Palm · Palm Pre · Sprint

Motorola’s Droid has a tough game of catch-up to play, but not as tough as what faces Palm’s Pre as both challenge Apple’s iPhone. Longer term, this may be a two horse race, with Android winning in the end and BlackBerry still chugging along.

That does not mean Apple actually “loses,” mind you. There is room in the market for at least two and probably three smartphone platforms. Think Android, Apple, and BlackBerry.

That leaves Palm and Microsoft and Linux and whatever else shows up in trouble. Microsoft should find a way to cut its losses. Palm may find the rug pulled out from under it by this time next year, if the Pre’s fortunes do not dramatically improve.

I don’t have hard research to back-up these conclusions, but I’ve spent 25 years reporting on computers and technology and here’s what I think:

The Droid is has had a spectacular launch, better than the Palm Pre; though initial sales have yet to occur. The Pre seems to be relegated, at least for now, to the shadows, which is a hard place for a smartphone to survive.

The Google name is hard to beat and the company seems to be using Android to launch its next-generation applications. This will upset some third-party developers but, from Google’s perspective, it cannot be helped.

Customers are happy when Google adds value without adding expense. Its Maps Navigation Service is, right now, perhaps the single best reason to choose a Droid over an iPhone.

Maybe I lack imagination, but I cannot figure out what Palm would have to do in order for the Pre to become a big success. Summer was the Pre’s window and Palm missed it.

Developer support is critical and it is unclear how many platforms smartphone app creators are willing to support. Palm loses if the number isn’t at least four.

BlackBerry is benefitting, I think, from a huge installed base and is largely seen as being outside the current fight. As a rule, I don’t think any handset without a “real” keyboard can be considered a BlackBerry killer. Score one for Droid and even the Pre Pixi handset.

Android has had a slow ramp-up, largely thanks to so-so hardware. There is a danger that all Android hardware will be lumped into a single category by potential customers and that the large number of Android handsets expected to become available will be more confusing to customers than helpful.

Google needs to help would-be smartphone customers by explaining how to tell if a given application is appropriate for a particular handset. There may need to be some distinction drawn between the various classes of Android handsets, perhaps with a naming scheme similar to what AMD has done with its Vision processor family.

Feedback from readers makes it clear to me that Android does not have to match the iPhone application-for-application to be competitive. Your e-mails cause me to believe that application parity, as a practical issue, will come earlier than next summer, as I have previously imagined.

Apple will have, for the near future, iTunes, and the Music Store as an advantage, but Google ought to be able to change that. Whether it will organize the Android music business, or rely on third parties and a mishmash of solutions, is unclear.

Google and its partners would do well to begin promoting applications that are available for both Android and iPhone, as a way to calm the nerves of anxious would-be Droid purchasers.

Apple’s iPhone, the current market leader, has become vulnerable. Google’s Android operating system, now at its 2.0 release, is growing legs. If there are really 40-50 Android phones available by next summer, as some predict, the platform could be much more interesting than iPhone.

To compete, Apple needs to rely on its ability to completely concentrate on a single hardware/software combination. People are very clear about what “iPhone” means, less clear about the meaning of “Android” or “Droid.”

Apple is playing catch-up in some areas, but has the potential to leap ahead by concentrating on things Google is not likely to do. Apple must take advantage of being able to design and build its own hardware, operating system, applications, and shopping.

At the same time, Apple must reject the Steve Jobs dogma that can make the iPhone seem less competitive. Sure, a removable and replaceable battery would break the iPhone’s lovely lines, but is that such a big deal?

The Droid has its work cut out for it, but the road is not as difficult as it may seem. The highest peak of smartphone technology remains Apple’s to lose, but if Steve and Co. fail to aggressively respond to Android–and not just with advertising–that loss is a real possibility.

[source: PC World]

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