I just read that it is speculated that Palm may be up for sale. And Nokia and Motorola are the two potential buyers. The article pointed out what Le said that Palm is a small market company with its line of Treos. And that they don't offer push email directly. Although they do offer it through outside vendors such as Microsoft. The funny thing was that at the end of the article the analyst commented that the Apple iPhone may have forced this sale. Based on the fact that the cell phone market is getting more and more crowded and a weak player like Palm would profit more now from a sale than to wait for more competitors such as Apple. It is also rumored that Google is working on a phone of their own. But they are denying it now. It is getting interesting. It will come down to, what do you really want your phone to do. How much are you willing to pay. And how good the user experience is. At least Apple leads the way on that last front. The others will depend on the customer response.
I've got to start using that crystal ball for more productive things!
3 comments:
You know, Stitch, I would argue that the Cool factor of the iPhone will mean even more than it does for the iPod. There is no question that the Treos are fine machines, but the iPhone will define "Cool" for phones. The last phone that caught people's attention from a cool point of view was the Razr. People crave "cool" for their phones, and they are willing to pay for it. When people see iPhone users surfing the internet with their fingers, the Cool factor will spread quickly, in my humble opinion. Palm's days as an independent player are over - they need to be a part of someone else's show if they are going to survive. It's going to get fierce out there!
Yes the cool factor will sell a lot of iPhones. I agree whole heartedly. But breaking into the business market of Blackberrys may be a little tougher. I think the key feature of the Blackberrys is the push email with their trademark keyboard layout. As Le pointed out. With push email, you don't have to check your emails yourself, you are notified immediatly when they arrive. A powerful feature. I know Apple setup a deal with Yahoo for the same type of service but Palm has a similar external service which didn't help them expand their market. I think one of the key things going for Apple is they made their cell phone upgradable right from the start. So if their original set of features doesn't sell they don't have to go back to the drawing board and create a new phone. Just update the software. If people are clamoring for a specific feature, it can be added much much quicker. Giving them a leg up in the market. Of course this style of phone will be copied if successful, but Apple has show with the iPod that they don't stand still. I saw a video on uTube about the rise of Jobs and the iPod. One of the key points by one of the analysts in the video was how amazed he was that Apple was able to retain 75% market share over 5 years from the introduction of the iPod. Having a 20% market share in his view would be considered excellent.
This may be the best move that Palm could make right now, I think.
-Le
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