

Why Microsoft should forget about Yahoo and buy Palm - rogercosseboom
http://slate.com/id/2209139

======
pavlov
The article suggests that Microsoft should spend 1-2 billion USD to buy Palm
because the Pre is an innovative gadget. The unanswered question is: would it
be worth that much to Microsoft to acquire a mobile phone company that has
completely lost its relevance and marketshare outside North America, and has
little to do with Microsoft's business-oriented Windows Mobile strategy?

Palm under Microsoft would become the "Zune phone" -- a vertical integration
experiment detached from the goals of the rest of the company. But didn't
Microsoft already buy Danger (maker of Sidekick/HipTop/whatever) not long ago?
It's possible Danger is already working on something along those lines, but
with more Windows integration than Palm's web-oriented Linux+WebKit device
provides. Where would Palm fit in?

------
lacker
It's a little early for the critics to shower praise on Palm's new device.
Right now, the Palm Pre is just a demo. It doesn't even have a release date -
according to Engadget it is supposed to be out in the "first half of 2009."
And yet this columnist declares the Pre's UI is better than the iPhone's. How
about holding off on statements like that until you have actually used one of
these devices.

[http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/13/palm-pre-everything-
you-e...](http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/13/palm-pre-everything-you-ever-
wanted-to-know/)

------
mdasen
The problem isn't that Microsoft can't create good products. The problem is
that its priorities can be different from the priorities of many users.
Microsoft concerns itself with its ecosystem more than anything. Apple doesn't
do this and Palm is splitting from their's with the Pre.

Apple's attitude is, "we created something great and you should want to
develop for it and if you're a user with legacy stuff, you should just
migrate". That's fine most of the time with consumers. Likewise, their
programmers have gotten used to making little tweaks when a new version of OS
X comes out to make sure things work well. Microsoft, on the other hand, has
tried to keep everything working even if the company that created an add-on is
now defunct. It's chained them up. Something relied on a bad behavior of IE so
that behavior must be kept even if it is sub-optimal for many things.

The Pre looks cool and I'm getting one as soon as it comes out (Sprint
customer who doesn't want to switch carriers). However, it's completely new.
It wouldn't be a platform to move Windows Mobile users to. Palm has created
something that looks really great. But Microsoft really needs to decide if
it's willing to let go of the legacy compatibility that Windows Mobile has
going for it and require the people who have made Windows Mobile applications
to suffer a dead end and port to a new platform.

It's easy when you're at the bottom to embrace change - you don't have
developers and customers to loose. Microsoft has a lot to loose. Break
compatibility and people can migrate to competitors as easily as they can
migrate to your new model. Of course, the other side is that if you don't make
the changes necessary, you can start loosing people because your product gets
old and kludgy.

------
lyime
Microsoft doesn't need Palm. It already has the talent and the resource to
build a great mobile platform. It just needs the will to start over. They are
in a tough position, traditionally they have stayed away fro mobile hardware
because of pressure from the hardware OEMs. This might change because of their
success (sort off) with Zune and xbox 360. I think Plam has a great strategy
about building apps using web technology and using a good browser (webkit)
Microsoft should forget about their mobile browser and adopt webkit also. They
should put aside the ego and accept their browser and mobile OS is not on part
with their competitor. From what I have been hearing about Windows 7 so far it
seems that they can still write good software.

------
markessien
Why should huge companies merge? What's wrong with a lot of small companies
with different visions? It keeps the market agile and innovative.

~~~
rogercosseboom
Efficency, marketshare, product consolidation, &tc.

Its one of the only unfortunate instances of self-organization I can think of.

------
rbanffy
No! Palm is good. Don't ruin it!

------
halo
I think Nokia would be a much better fit for Palm.

Nokia are desperately lacking a next-generation smartphone platform, they have
plenty of hardware experience, they have relatively little penetration in the
US where the Palm brand could potentially help them gain marketshare, and the
ability to use the strong Nokia brand in other markets would help sales of any
Palm phones.

~~~
andrewf
Nokia is already executing a different strategy - they purchased Trolltech for
$150 million less than a year ago.

------
trickjarrett
My major issue with this concept is the added expense of integrating the Palm
OS and Windows Mobile. That's no small undertaking and it would find Microsoft
stuck between them until it could complete the integration.

------
dejb
It wasn't all that long ago that many Palm branded phones being sold were
actually running Windows Mobile. I suspect that commentators are way too quick
to write off the Windows Mobile platform most cause they don't really know
much about it. Sure the UI is a little clumsy compared to the iphone but I
don't see what will make it so difficult to incorporate most of the techniques
in to the OS. There are actually a huge number of apps developed for the
platform and still it has a large user base around the world. I suspect the
much of the reason for the platform being written of is their lack of a mobile
carrier 'deal' in the US.

~~~
dejb
Downmods with no comments to a serious proposition -> Mac zealots, morons or
some combination of these.

------
ibsulon
Wasn't the whole reason that Microsoft wanted Yahoo was its patent portfolio?

------
sarvesh
A better idea for microsoft would be to get back into writing great software.
Their main business as always been software. If they can do this they don't
have to buy anyone. Buying these companies doesn't mean they'll get all talent
with them.

~~~
axod
To write great software though you have to be able to move fast and iterate. I
don't think they can do that with the vast number of staff they have.

It'd probably be a good first move to get rid of half the staff - should speed
things up a bit.

~~~
electromagnetic
It depends on what you consider great software. I agree the Office programmers
could do with being cut in half or into two departments, one with a majority
of senior programmers and one with newer programmers; one produces Office and
one runs through all the code and tests the sucker to death.

However, writing an OS I don't think fast is necessarily good. The biggest
improvement (IMO) microsoft could make to windows would essentially be a
completely error free XP. I've tried Vista and I've seen no appreciable
improvement and just a huge pain in the ass for doing absolutely everything
I'm used to.

I think if they could make XP survive anything that can be thrown at it and
virus proof the sucker to hell, I think it would be the best product MS ever
made.

~~~
kahseng
Have you tried Windows 7? You might want to, I was really pleasantly
surprised.

