We can't help but feel really bad for Palm, whose situation has apparently gone from bad to worse. This is the company that redefined portable computing with the PDA in the 90's, then pretty much invented the smartphone soon after that but now the company is sinking because no one is buying their phones, what went wrong?
The Palm Pre was incredibly compelling when it came out a year ago. We were among the misty-eyed fans rooting for the revitalized company tried to see a future with Palm thriving. This was followed by the less capable Palm Pixi and for a while there it looked like Palm was on a roll.
A year later, everyone in the smartphone game has advanced in terms of handsets and OS revisions. Google Android has a stable of devices and OS versions peppering the landscape and while this is confusing for many, we can't deny that it is pushing the Android OS forward. Apple made the necessary improvements to their OS, upped the hardware with the iPhone 3GS and still offers bazillions of apps for all and sundry.
Even Microsoft, once left for dead in the wake of the new breed smartphone OS landscape, has surprised everyone by brandishing Windows Phone 7 Series which is nothing short of revolutionary and forward thinking. Palm has refreshed its hardware and updated its software but nothing really exciting has happened since then. Here is a list of reasons why Palm is trouble.
- Poor marketing - outside of the early creepy ads Palm never really pushed its features and benefits.
- Limited availability - It was a mistake for Palm to stick to CDMA, specially since everyone is going GSM with high speed HSPA networks. Asia, Europe and most of US and Canada would have jumped on unlocked Palm Pre's. Even if they release unlocked Pre's and Pixi's now, no one would care.
- WebOS adoption - WebOS is a really great mobile OS, the flash cards metaphor is clever and works. Palm jumped the gun by not promoting it properly and now they're pushing for game development on WebOS. No one is going to care about games if the business end of the smartphone isn't robust- get developers to develop serious, useful apps then when the users are on board start offering games and other novelty apps.
It is a question on relevance, really. If you wee a potential customer, why would you hitch your wagon to Palm's star, what is the promise for the future? With smartphones, now Palm's only product, you aren't just buying the hardware and its accompanying software, you are also buying the future of that ecosystem and all that it offers. If that future is as blurry and uncertain as Palm's is right now, you will likely stay away.