Palm WebOS, Pre and Pixi – Where Are We Now?
by Joseph Berthiaume on March 23, 2010 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
Final Words
To paraphrase a great quote from Anand’s original Pre review when comparing the Pre and iPhone: There are some things that Pixi does better than the Pre. There are also some things that the Pixi does not do better than the Pre.
Recently Palm CEO Jon Rubenstein sent out a company-wide missive following Palm’s preannouncement of its less-than-stellar financial results. In it he admits that the launch of Pre/Pixi – Plus on the Verizon network did not go as well as planned, and explains that Palm and Verizon Wireless have met and mapped out a strategy to jump start sales. It was apparently obvious that Verizon didn’t do a great job of pushing Palm’s products, and that Verizon’s sales staff just wasn’t knowledgeable of them.
This week Palm followed up on that pre-annoucement by posting their Q3 earnings which were uh, not good, nor was the guidance the company offered for its fiscal 4th quarter. Following the call, shares dropped nearly 30% amid another flurry of downgrades. Sales were and continue to be poor and there now appear to be a growing inventory surplus.
How they change this over the next 6 months and how sales across all networks over the next year look, will be very important to both the future of the WebOS platform and Palm itself. Niether the Pre or Pixi has made major inroads, at least not in such a way to appear as more than a blip on the radar. Gartner’s latest results show that WebOS devices accounted for a mere 0.7% of smartphone OS’s in 2009. That’s, well, not very much and isn’t a good sign for devices based on an OS that was so well received. Is there just no interest from the general public? Is it smartphone fatigue from the consumer? Even with the release this year on Verizon of the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus, Palm hasn’t exactly seen major market penetration and the consensus seems to be that we’ll see more of the same when Pre Plus and Pixi Plus hit AT&T later this year. (Update: if you believe the rumors, it appears that release is now being delayed – more bad news) With the dismal sales data, resulting flurry of downgrades from Wall Street and precipitous drop by their stock, you have to be a little worried about the future of both the company and thus the platform.
It really is a shame. WebOS is truly a revolutionary, game-changing OS that does things that none of the top smartphone OS’s can do (yet). Palm has a lot to be proud of here, but they are clearly coming up just a bit short, especially in hardware, and that’s coming at a bad time for the company, especially given the speed at which the industry is moving. Microsoft’s announcement of Windows Phone 7 has cast another hot coal into an already broiling fire. Will we see Palm license the WebOS to phone OEMs as a means of gaining market penetration and staying financially solvent? Will we see a brand new WebOS device – and WebOS 2.0 - before year’s end, and will it turn the industry on its other ear?
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johnsonx - Tuesday, March 23, 2010 - link
I think it's the long Sprint-exclusive contract that potentially killed Palm here. If it had launched on Verizon first (or preferably on several major carriers), I think it would have had a better chance to take off. But it slumbered on #3 Sprint while the iPhone 3GS and Android won the customers on #2 and #1.Now it's finally available on #1 Verizon, but everyone knows the platform is struggling. Now, amazing news of Windows Phone 7 further erodes Palm's chances.
inspire - Thursday, March 25, 2010 - link
I disagree with you there - Sprint has the advantage of 3G coverage, 4G speeds, and the most affordable data plans available. What killed the Pre was that neither Palm nor Sprint were able to mount anything resembling an effective marketing campaign at launch - it took 3-6 months before anything halfway decent really came out, and even then it was from Sprint.Also, if you read the article, you'd realize that the platform isn't struggling at all - the sales are. It's trouble with Verizon is that the Pre & Pixi basically blew their 4 month lead they had on the Droid, and now that they've come to Verizon, the Droid is simply a better deal.
mschira - Tuesday, March 23, 2010 - link
Well In Australia you can't even get them with a mobile phone carrier, be it the Pre nor the Pixi.I don't know about Europe but if its that they don't support the GSM mobile standard, then you can't get them in Europe either.
Sorry but that's not the best strategy to sell a device...
M.
juzz86 - Wednesday, March 24, 2010 - link
In fact, the only way to get one in Australia is from Europe, because they've got exclusivity on the GSM version through O2 (for now). There are 'factory' unlocked ones on eBay, but with QWERTZ (German) keyboards and astronomical (AU$1100+) price tags. I've just purchased a used handset to have a try on, and even that was AU$600. The only saving grace? Tri-band HSDPA. Here we come NextG!vol7ron - Tuesday, March 23, 2010 - link
I agree. The service is a large factor when choosing hardware. A large part of the core smart-phone functionality is the "phone" - with a bad provider, it doesn't matter how brilliant the hardware is.----
I'd also like to add that I criticized software keyboards at first, but have since learned to live with them. What I'd still like is a bigger screen than the iPhone - an expandable touch screen is where it's at.
If I wanted a keyboard, I'd be fine with going back to the Palm/Compaq iPaq/Handspring days and get either a bluetooth keyboard, or a plugin keyboard to the native port. My guess is that you could make a thing sleeve that sticks on to the bottom of the phone to make it look just like the treo/blackbery/pixy, and still have that large screen.
mschira - Tuesday, March 23, 2010 - link
Yea, where is the small leather sleeve that carries and protect an iPhone whilst having a small keyboard build in.That should be a no brain top seller, making the iPhone a better organiser for those who want a hardware keyboard.
M.
vol7ron - Tuesday, March 23, 2010 - link
thin sleeve*taltamir - Tuesday, March 23, 2010 - link
[quote]When it was first unveiled, Pre and its new operating system WebOS, instantly generated tremendous buzz across the smartphone and tech industry as a sort of resurrection for Palm, and possibly the first (at the time) legitimate competitor to Apple’s iPhone[/quote]Are you saying the android OS is not a legitimate competitor to iphone / palm pre? (android was released before the palm pre)
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, March 23, 2010 - link
I believe Joseph meant that at the time of the Pre's release, it was the closest to the iPhone. Android has since matured tremendously, both as an OS as well as in terms of available hardware platforms. It's definitely a viable competitor at this point.In my experience, all three OSes have their strengths and weaknesses. There are things that webOS does that iPhone/Android do not do, and vice versa.
I'll be addressing a lot of this in an upcoming look at the new AT&T Google Nexus One.
Take care,
Anand
pookguy88 - Tuesday, March 23, 2010 - link
I'll be looking forward to that article