Palm Responds to the iPhone

Several people noted a NYT piece about Palm's response to the iPhone. Essentially, their response appears to be to hire a former Apple engineer and a couple other folks -- while also pursuing plans to perhaps sell the company. Nothing like a dual approach to the problem.

Comments

Re:allinone

[denis-The-menace]

I'd be happy with phone that just has a decent 2MP camera with image stabiliser, an MP3 player with buttons outside the phone and most importantly a USB connection to load/unload pictures and music. As simple as it seems, you can find this yet.
Portable combo gadgets like this will not replace dedicated devices for another 10-15 years. The reason: too much greed in the business. When IP phones start to give Cell phones companies a run for their money, you start seeing decent All-in-one phones.

Heck, All-in-one Printers are just now starting to be on-par with their dedicated brethren.

Re:Agreed

[juniorbird]

Palm's ability to offer the Treo on multiple carriers is certainly a big advantage, but there is precedent for offering a high-end converged device on just one carrier -- T-Mobile's Sidekick. How did that do? Let's see, it became an iconic product that every famous person had to have. Last year, T-Mobile moved about a million of those. Apple apparently thinks it'll sell 5 million iPhones. Is that possible? That basically depends on a few questions:

• Will, as you ask, people switch to Cingular? Well, with number portability one issue goes away. Another potential issue is that Sprint is a much bigger business carrier than is Cingular -- some business users will only have Sprint phones as an option. But we do see that most carriers have about 2% churn annually, and Cingular did gain 2.4mm new subscribers in just 4Q '06, so there's precedent for an inflow of customers
• Is the price too high? I think it seems high, but the bigger iPods sell reasonably well too, and they're pretty pricey. There are also a lot of smartphones in the $399-$699 range without rebate, and most of these started out with pretty small rebates and long contracts. The iPhone is selling through the same, proven channel with the same, proven incentives.
• Is the iPhone a toy? This is related to the question "will not being available on Sprint and Verizon doom the product with businesspeople?" All of the things the iPhone does are things that people pay RIM and Palm big money to do right now. If the iPhone can do them better -- and assuming they need to be done better -- then it's not a toy, it's a productivity tool, and how many executives are going to accept their IT guy's objection that "we don't have an account with Cingular"? Oh, and because it looks sexy, the iPhone is also a toy, and can compete in the toy market with the Sidekick. How big is that market? 1.1 million units last year. The Blackberry Pearl sold a bunch of units at the end of the year too -- maybe 500,000? That's a good sized market, and a very fashion-conscious one, that should be very receptive to the iPhone.
• Is the iPhone really just "about as good as" other smartphones? That's the big question. Apple's history in designing similar devices suggests that the iPhone should be substantially better, but, if it's not, then it's true that success outside a small niche is going to be impossible. Apple's banking a lot on its ability to design a better interface, we'll have to see how the iPhone holds up over time.
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  Add it all up, and I think you get about 3mm shipments in the iPhone's first year on the market -- a lot less than 5, but a start.