The Motley Fool: Palm Pre DOA
I have to admit, this post on The Motley Fool has me scratching my head. The author found a smartphone survey and based on some of the findings is making a giant, no, huge leap that the Palm Pre is already dead upon release. Say what?
What he’s jumping on is that only 4% of the massive 4,292 survey respondents indicated they intend to buy a Palm Pre. His reasoning, that this means few people are going to buy a Pre, is because he compared this 4% to the 37% and 30% who indicated they are going to buy a BlackBerry and iPhone, respectively. Therefore, the Pre is already in trouble.
He goes on to say that the Pre is not buzz-worthy and that folks are just not excited about it. I find this so far off compared to what I am seeing that all I can do is laugh about this. I’m seeing that the Palm Pre has so many people buzzing in anticipation of the launch, more than most phones in recent memory. I guess what Palm needs to do is just release the darn thing already.
I am very very excited about the Pre. I am less happy that it is on Sprint, but webOS looks amazing. I started my mobile journey with a Palm Pilot Professional and really hope that Palm can pull this off.
I really hope that webOS lives on no matter what happens with the Pre because it shows a lot of potential to be one of the top mobile operating systems.
I think you may be surprised to learn that most people are not tech geeks who care about highly advanced phones that have not been advertised to the mainstream. Has anyone outside the mobile tech circle even heard of the Pre, let alone seen what it can do? Hard for people to want a phone they don’t know exists.
I completely agree with you on this one. I sincerely hope that Sprint and Palm ramp up marketing big time because when I mention this phone in my travels, most folks haven’t heard of it nor its capabilities.
Lol this is a joke. They asked about a single phone from Palm that isn’t even OUT yet, and compared it to the same question asked about an entire brand of phones (Blackberry) and an line of other phones (iPhone 1 and 3G), both of which have been out for a long time. OF COURSE not many people know about the Pre yet because it isn’t in anyones hands.
James don’t Kevin see this, he might just go BlackBerry
+1 for your relentless persuasion, HG! The RIM folks should really hire you before they can’t afford you.
I’d be up for it, but there’s no way I’d ever switch to Sprint. I don’t understand why they just can sell a phone and let US pick which carrier we want.
I have a Centro and plan on staying with Sprint. I’ve been very happy with them.
I’m hoping the Pre is as cheap as the Centro was.
People were willing to compromise a bit on coverage with ATT to get the iphone but switching to Sprint for the Pre? Last week a business colleague of mine had a meeting in California and he had couldn’t receive or make calls on his phone for three days….he has Sprint….We’ll have to wait and see…
Yes – The Motley Fool
Weren’t they recommending Citibank as a buy about a year ago?
- I agree release it already. I think price will be a big factor in success. $249 and over it will just lay there. Aggressively priced at $99 to $149 and it will take off.
Well, I think they are probably right on this one, for a few related reasons:
1) Palm is seen as a dead or dying company by most of the public, regardless of what tech pundits may say about the Pre or Palm.
2) As another article on GigaOM points out: For Some App Developers Palm & Nokia Are No-Gos. I think Some could easily be Most in this case.
http://gigaom.com/2009/04/08/for-some-app-developers-palm-nokia-are-no-gos/
3) Many, or most, Mac users harbor significant resentment toward Palm for treating them like second-class citizens for years. While by no means a majority of potential customers, they are a significant portion of likely (or in this case, unlikely) customers, and they aren’t going to buy anything Palm, especially given the alternatives.
+1 for Jb’s points.
I am “up” on the latest and greatest. And as I mentioned in a prior comment on a separate Pre post, I am so resentful of Palm for its past indiscretions that if my choice of phones was limited to a Pre or a 5 year old Razr, I would choose the Razr. I don’t believe I am alone in my negative attitude toward Palm.
Through mismanagement and broken promises they took a once cutting edge technology company and alienated the very people that once shouted their virtues to the masses. I won’t shout for them again. Given the competiton with Apple, RIM and Nokia, they would be a distant 4th in my consideration for a new handset.
Instead of once bitten twice shy, it is more like bitten 10 times – no more.
I bet that the Motley Fool article is more accurate then you want to believe.
If you read the bottom of that post, it says this:
“Fool contributor Tim Beyers had stock and options positions in Apple and…in Nokia at the time of publication.”
So, I’m sure he’s worried about the performance of these holdings should Palm grab significant market share. Or, he’s shorted Palm and is hoping to influence the market. Either way, he’s far from an unbiased party.
Just got the first marketing spam from Sprint about the Pre (yes, I signed up – apparently about 4M people did) – nothing more than a “social” page with links to Tweets, videos, websites touting the Pre. Pretty cool, IMO. And today is the 17th – the “strongest” rumor to date has the Pre coming out on May 17.
The phone isn’t even out, and there have hardly been any ads for it, they just seem to be starting to peep out now. I’m buying one asap, moving from Blackberry.
Apple made a brilliant decision with its “App” store business model and Blackberry is so deeply entrenched in the enterprise environment that very few IT managers are going to be willing to migrate. (at least for a while)
BTW: Has anyone seen the functionality of iPhone 3.0? (due this summer) It duplicates many of the functions associated with Palm and BB.
Where’s the darn thing already and how much is it going to cost?
Unless Palm offers the Pre’ as a GSM world phone (and really soon) I don’t see how they can compete with the iPhone and Blackberry. The Pre’ had better be everything they claim and far far more.
I don’t think the Pre is DOA, but I think it’s going to face a lot of challenges, and I think the techies probably are more optimistic about its success than we should be.
If the Pre were released in a vacuum, I think it would do well – perhaps not as well as the iPhone, but certainly as well or better than the G1. And I do think Palm will have that vacuum for a couple of months, since the release is out of cycle with a lot of their competitors phones. But come July, Palm is going to face some serious competition again from whatever Apple’s got cooking, and then a month later with the next Blackberry device, and a month after that not one but probably several Android devices. And unless Palm has gotten a lot of momentum in that two month space, it will likely encounter too much resistance to become the breakout hit that Palm needs it to be for the company to survive.
I have high hopes for Palm, and wish them luck. I’m a big fan and have been for many years. But I think the Palm Pre comes too late for them. Not too little, just too late.