When the Palm Pre was launched, pretty much everyone round the world went “Oooooooooooooh”. There was a very a good reason for that, too: the Palm Pre was quite unlike anything we’d ever seen before, thanks to that WebOS interface. It was all new and exciting and sexy and all that, and it was pretty much exactly what Palm needed to stop themselves sinking down the toilet bowl of obscurity.
Er, probably best if you just go with that analogy and don’t think about it too much…
However, the question, now, is whether Palm have done enough to push WebOS out there, and make a success of it, or whether, despite all their efforts, they never got above the rim of the toilet bowl of obscur- okay, I promise I won’t use that analogy again, sorry. Anyway, crashing on, according to Barron’s, the answer to that question is very possibly that they’ve not done enough, and that’s why Bank of America/Merrill Lynch analyst Vivek Arya changed his evaluation of Palm from “Buy” to “Underperform”.
According to Arya, “Palm’s superior platform features have not translated into sufficient carrier support and consumer demand, and we are concerned the window of opportunity may be closing as Google’s Android ecosystem gains ground, Research In Motion revitalizes its portfolio, iPhone increases its presence, and as Microsoft reboots its efforts with Windows Phone 7. With only $130 million of net cash in an opex intensive space, Palm’s options may be limited in our view.”
Yipes, that’s pretty categorical, that is. So, what’s gone wrong? Well, it could be to do with Palm running an ad campaign they can now barely afford, their exclusive network partners wanting to sell the Droid and Blackberrys before wanting to sell a Palm Pre, and although there’s a glimmer of hope in adding new network partners, people worry it might be too little, too late. Of course, combine that with the fact that Windows Phone 7 Series is going to be soon hitting the market, and it nicks all of WebOS’s social networking tricks, and arguably does them considerably better (something you could also say about the Motorola DEXT), and it seems like things are looking grim for Palm.
Still, I hope they can get their act together, because I really like WebOS. I can’t help thinking some new hardware would help though…
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