Palm for sale
After truly failing with the Pre (despite the fact that they have the best phone OS right now), Palm is up for sale.
It is sad to see that they did such a crappy job marketing the first real competitor to the iPhone that they are now looking to be bought out. The tech reviewers generally loved it, especially the software, but the marketing and the decision to launch with only Sprint for 6mo were truly idiotic.
I agree with Engadget and Gizmodo that the best buyer is HTC. They make many of the world's best smartphones, and have shown a lot of skill re-skinning shitty OS's from other companies (namely Symbian and Windows Mobile), but they dont have their own OS. WebOS is generally regarded as the best OS out there right now (iPhone OS 4 and Andriod 2.1 and Windows Phone 7 all explicitly copy from webOS, and attempt to make their platforms more "webOS like"), and mating that with the beautiful hardware which HTC puts together would create company largely unrivaled - especially considering the slow disintegration of android due to all the different versions, it remains to be seen if Google can right that ship.
Also Palm has a huge patent portfolio dating back to 1992 as it basically invented mobile computing and the smartphone. That portfolio kept Apple at bay, even when the Pre blatantly infringed on Apple patents, and pretended to be a iPod when you hooked it to your computer - I love that one. The reason? The iPhone infringes on a ton of Palm patents, and both sides knew it. Palm would give HTC the patent portfolio it needs to fend off Apple (who is currently suing them over the Nexus One).
Another company talked about is blackberry, which has a huge chunk of the US market, but an outdated OS which has been losing it consumers for the past couple years (though I know it has been gaining market share it is undeniable that it has lost ground on the high-end to the iPhone in particular, and that the Storms (1 and 2) were total failures).
Again, the logic here is buy Palm for the webOS and keep blackberry hardware, but there is an issue - which is that webOS is not really built for companies and sprawling IT departments. Blackberry has recently bought a webkit browser company and a new linux OS company, so it is widely expected they are developing a new and more modern OS with a usable browser.
The one that would perhaps make the most sense, but will never happen, is Nokia. Remember the last time someone talked about a Nokia smartphone? Yeah, they never have. Ever. Nokia has been totally focused on shipping a gajillion basic phones to the developing world. It is the largest cell-phone company in the world, but it just sucks at the smartphone game. And honestly, that is what it is all about right now.
A big part of the reason it sucks so badly is its OSs - yes it has two. It had Symbian, which is terrible and ancient and awful and useless, but which Nokia paid $1 billion for (to be fair, Symbian runs almost all of Nokia's phones, it is just the "advanced" smartphone version is equivalent to bringing a Buick to a supercar party). But way back in 2005 Nokia released a pocket-size touch-screen internet tablet, the n770, which I own and loved (it has gotten much less use now I have a smartphone), and it ran on a version of Linux, Memo, which Nokia has slowly developed with almost no money behind it, but has ended up being far far better than Symbian.
Really Nokia would be a lot better off just buying Palm, scooping up the patents, and releasing a slew of webOS phones. Overnight it could become a leading contender in smartphones. But no one expects them too, as they are too heavily invested in their current two OS's.
The scariest prospect is Apple buying Palm. Apple hired away a number of key Palm execs in order to develop the iPhone. Palm then hired a number of key Apple execs to build the Pre to compete with the iPhone. Sadly, they forgot to hire anyone from Apple's marketing or biz-dev departments, and totally screwed the pooch. So now Apple could buy Palm up, actually probably a small forgotten division of Apple (laptops?) could buy Palm without even noticing the cost, and it would give a litigious Apple one of the biggest patent portfolios in cell-phones and touchscreen devices, and kill off the best phone OS currently available (have I mentioned that webOS does everything iPhone OS 4.0 does, and far far more? Like real, full, honest multitasking? And push notifications? And flash?).
So here is one more vote for HTC, but sad to see Palm really blew the launch and marketing of the Pre this badly. Sad.
It is sad to see that they did such a crappy job marketing the first real competitor to the iPhone that they are now looking to be bought out. The tech reviewers generally loved it, especially the software, but the marketing and the decision to launch with only Sprint for 6mo were truly idiotic.
I agree with Engadget and Gizmodo that the best buyer is HTC. They make many of the world's best smartphones, and have shown a lot of skill re-skinning shitty OS's from other companies (namely Symbian and Windows Mobile), but they dont have their own OS. WebOS is generally regarded as the best OS out there right now (iPhone OS 4 and Andriod 2.1 and Windows Phone 7 all explicitly copy from webOS, and attempt to make their platforms more "webOS like"), and mating that with the beautiful hardware which HTC puts together would create company largely unrivaled - especially considering the slow disintegration of android due to all the different versions, it remains to be seen if Google can right that ship.
Also Palm has a huge patent portfolio dating back to 1992 as it basically invented mobile computing and the smartphone. That portfolio kept Apple at bay, even when the Pre blatantly infringed on Apple patents, and pretended to be a iPod when you hooked it to your computer - I love that one. The reason? The iPhone infringes on a ton of Palm patents, and both sides knew it. Palm would give HTC the patent portfolio it needs to fend off Apple (who is currently suing them over the Nexus One).
Another company talked about is blackberry, which has a huge chunk of the US market, but an outdated OS which has been losing it consumers for the past couple years (though I know it has been gaining market share it is undeniable that it has lost ground on the high-end to the iPhone in particular, and that the Storms (1 and 2) were total failures).
Again, the logic here is buy Palm for the webOS and keep blackberry hardware, but there is an issue - which is that webOS is not really built for companies and sprawling IT departments. Blackberry has recently bought a webkit browser company and a new linux OS company, so it is widely expected they are developing a new and more modern OS with a usable browser.
The one that would perhaps make the most sense, but will never happen, is Nokia. Remember the last time someone talked about a Nokia smartphone? Yeah, they never have. Ever. Nokia has been totally focused on shipping a gajillion basic phones to the developing world. It is the largest cell-phone company in the world, but it just sucks at the smartphone game. And honestly, that is what it is all about right now.
A big part of the reason it sucks so badly is its OSs - yes it has two. It had Symbian, which is terrible and ancient and awful and useless, but which Nokia paid $1 billion for (to be fair, Symbian runs almost all of Nokia's phones, it is just the "advanced" smartphone version is equivalent to bringing a Buick to a supercar party). But way back in 2005 Nokia released a pocket-size touch-screen internet tablet, the n770, which I own and loved (it has gotten much less use now I have a smartphone), and it ran on a version of Linux, Memo, which Nokia has slowly developed with almost no money behind it, but has ended up being far far better than Symbian.
Really Nokia would be a lot better off just buying Palm, scooping up the patents, and releasing a slew of webOS phones. Overnight it could become a leading contender in smartphones. But no one expects them too, as they are too heavily invested in their current two OS's.
The scariest prospect is Apple buying Palm. Apple hired away a number of key Palm execs in order to develop the iPhone. Palm then hired a number of key Apple execs to build the Pre to compete with the iPhone. Sadly, they forgot to hire anyone from Apple's marketing or biz-dev departments, and totally screwed the pooch. So now Apple could buy Palm up, actually probably a small forgotten division of Apple (laptops?) could buy Palm without even noticing the cost, and it would give a litigious Apple one of the biggest patent portfolios in cell-phones and touchscreen devices, and kill off the best phone OS currently available (have I mentioned that webOS does everything iPhone OS 4.0 does, and far far more? Like real, full, honest multitasking? And push notifications? And flash?).
So here is one more vote for HTC, but sad to see Palm really blew the launch and marketing of the Pre this badly. Sad.
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