

Strategic shortcomings of Pre in the post-iPhone era - raganwald
http://counternotions.com/2009/01/12/pre/

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ssharp
There has to be something to the "too little too late" shortcoming. Does Palm
actually have enough money to market this thing? Blackberry seemed to dump a
LOT of money into advertising for the Storm. If that's what is needed to
actually gain consumer's attention, then Palm could be in trouble. I'm not
sure if word of mouth will actually be strong enough.

I also didn't realize that this phone was attached to Sprint. I just don't see
this device having the initial appeal that the iPhone had. That appeal was
enough to get a large amount of people to convert to AT&T.

I hope for the sake of competition that Palm manages to avoid bankruptcy and
that the device does well. I just don't see it happening. It might end up
doing good enough on Sprint but I don't see the numbers of people flocking to
this that was there for the iPhone.

One of the major advantages to the iPhone was that even though it was
announced just two years ago, it was the first phone device to provide a
legitimate web browsing experience, a quality touch screen interface, and a
usable audio/video player. Two years later, you can't bank on those three
things as a competitive advantage. Where is the next killer feature that the
iPhone is missing? The answer isn't a physical keyboard.

~~~
halo
Palm recently got a $100m investment by private equity firm Elevation so they
should be able to stay buoyant for now. Internet buzz will help, and
presumably Sprint are going to be doing a lot of advertising for them and push
the phone heavily.

I don't think they are competing with the iPhone as much as they are RIM, the
biggest smartphone manufacturer in the US.

There are lots of innovations in there: good multitasking support, a proper
application dock, and sync and communicate via multiple services being the
obvious ones. But it benefits from looking like a good all-round phone when
every other one out there has glaring flaws.

~~~
electromagnetic
I think the other key benefit is that it actually _looks_ like a phone. Smart
Phone companies are all aiming for the 18-34 bracket, however there's a lot
more people with a lot more money in the 35-65 bracket. My wife's uncle
laughed at the iPhone, because without a keyboard it's completely useless and
as a 20 year old writer I whole heartedly agree.

There's also an amazing thing called "word of mouth" which beats any other
form of advertising ten-fold. I saw the demo and said "I want one", I showed
my wife and she said "I want one!" There's a handful of people that if I
showed I'd say there's a good 80% chance they would say they want one, all of
whom don't have an iPhone.

See the funny thing with the iPhone is that it plays off the iPod gimmick. I'm
not sure how long that momentum will last, before all the people who are
whipped into thinking apple are amazing begin to ask questions. Apple has too
much momentum and it'll have to spend a lot of energy keeping it up to keep
people distracted from flaws. Palm however has virtually no momentum, it has
no large vocal user base that it has to fear, aside from a few techies (like
us) most people probably haven't even heard of Palm so it's like being a brand
new player. No one knows they failed in the past, no one cares and as long as
the Pre is as good as it looks in that demo then I give Palm an amazing chance
as lead underdog.

I also think the Pre sits in a nice niche between iPhone and Blackberry, which
will either make it huge or kill it completely depending on if it can steal
customers or if it acts as a gateway drug to the iCrack/crackberry.

~~~
gensym
Things that may be completely useless:

    
    
      * Car without engine
      * Bookshelves that cannot support the weight of books
      * Computer without processor
      * Nonalcoholic beer
    

This that are most definitely not completely useless:

    
    
      * Cell phone that can play MP3s and videos but lacks a physical keyboard

~~~
electromagnetic
Okay, how about I take your keyboard away, and lets see you type that on the
on-screen keyboard utility's you get with Windows/OS X. Please, let me see you
type an email message without a keyboard.

I agree, it's not completely useless. It's about 99.9% of the way there
though.

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lallysingh
Having watched the XKCD Google video yesterday, I remember a quote about
defending yourself from Raptors in the building he was in: "I don't have to
outrun the Raptors, I just have to outrun _you_."

If you're looking to see if Palm can survive long enough to make this product
stick, it doesn't have to beat the iPhone. It has to beat the slowest iPhone
competitor whose market share will keep Palm alive. Who's that? Android? Rim?
One of those really terrible touchscreen clones with no noticeable software
stack?

Finally, the fact that it's CDMA first is a huge boost for it. A _lot_ of
people I know have the money for a smartphone, but don't care enough about
features to jump networks for it. Palm'll have GSM versions out later. In the
mean time, I suspect Sprint & Verizon will happily push this model for Palm,
as a way to fight AT&T.

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JoelSutherland
I wonder if releasing on Sprint is an advantage. Sprint customers have been
stuck with terrible phones for the last couple of years.

As long as the pricepoint is reasonable (and the hype isn't unfounded), the
Pre should do really well with Sprint customers. Right now they don't really
have a modern smartphone available.

As a sidenote: I think we can see why Sprint delayed releasing an Android
phone: [http://blogs.reuters.com/mediafile/2008/10/24/sprint-
android...](http://blogs.reuters.com/mediafile/2008/10/24/sprint-android-not-
good-enough-yet/)

~~~
jemmons
Sprint customers have been stuck with terrible phones for so long, most of
them are no longer Sprint customers.

And those that are will look at the Pre and say, "What? No PTT!?"

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anthony_barker
There are still a lot of unknowns until they have a shipping product. But
assuming they deliver I have a feeling that someone will buy Palm. HP? Nokia?
Google?

People are making a fuss about a perceived lack of rich application
development. My bet is Adobe Flash will pull it out of the bag.

The big issue in North America/Korea is that only RIM, Microsoft, and now Palm
support CDMA properly. Advantage Pre.

Finally - lets see if they can get decent deals in Japan or China. Two of the
largest markets - where iphone has had limited success.

------
joshsharp
I'm not sure, I think the Pre and the new Palm OS has a lot going for it.
HTML/JS-based apps are possibly a weakness, but I couldn't say without looking
further at how they integrate. As for "late to the party" - no. The "mobile
phones as first class devices" party is only just getting started. Good luck,
Palm.

