Is Palm Saved?

So, now that the dust has settled on Thursday morning’s announcements from Palm, let’s review what we know, and what we don’t.

What we know:

• They produced an operating system that, at least from the demo, looks pretty darn compelling. In short, I would say it exceeded most expectations. The buzz in the room was almost universally positive. And the device likewise seemed to hit all the key check boxes, with multi-touch, a big screen in a compact form factor and a slide-out keyboard for the e-mail obsessed. The company also provided a big focus on the ease of developing applications for the device. And they hit some other hot buttons with their focus on the connectedness of the new phone, pulling data from Facebook and other social networking applications and seamlessly merging it with personal contact, calendar, e-mail and chat info.
• They have their first distribution partner with Sprint (S), a long-time Palm partner. A good reception for this phone could be a big win for the struggling carrier, in the same way the iPhone has been helpful to AT&T (T).

What we don’t know:

• We don’t know exactly when it ships; they said sometime in the first half. Think June.
• We don’t know what it will sell for at retail. But as someone I chatted with at the event noted, it likely will not be much more than the $199 Apple charges for an 8 GB iPhone.
• We don’t know if it will actually be as easy to develop applications for as Sprint suggests. And we don’t know if developers, who already can choose to produce apps for a range of other mobile phone operating systems, will also choose to support the new Palm Web OS.
• We don’t know if the company has signed any distribution deals for the Palm Pre phone outside the U.S.
• We don’t know if the company is considering a strategy of licensing the platform to other hardware developers.
• And at the end of the day, we don’t know if the phone will win over users.

But the net net is that this press event was a big hurdle for Palm, and it flew over the barricade without a hitch. This is just the beginning of the story. But now Palm actually has a story to tell, which has not been the case for a long, long time.

PALM shares Thursday jumped $1.15, or 34.9%, to $4.45. The stock has backtracked 6 cents in late trading.

Comments

[Yagottabe K...:]

The user interface is not the OS. The user interface was slick and had a couple features that other similar UIs don't have but that's just an increment over what exists, not a breakthrough, and certainly not insurmountable by all those other phone makers out there.

We have yet to see the OS put through the wringer (not JUST WebOS, but the REAL OS sitting on top of the hardware). Will it fly wonderfully when a phone call comes in and an active web-based application is running?

This is certainly the most interesting device Palm has produced and it's fun to watch the little windows zip by with finger flicks (I wonder how fast that will get tiresome?) but we have yet to see if it's actually a win.

Jan 10 08:49 AM