Palm Pre and Business: Upgraded, More Upgrades to Come 41

We've got two business-related stories about the Palm Pre to give to you.

First, in the dearth of Pre sales numbers, a disproportionate amount of our posts have been based on analyst conjecture -- which had led to plenty of consternation.  Recently, though, Palm let us know that there's an analyst report based on fact and testing that's worth pointing out. Ken Dulaney of Gartner Research recently upgraded the company's enterprise category for the Pre from "Concierge" to "Appliance" thanks to Palm's addition of Remote Wipe and Password complexity requirements:

We have tested these policies on the device, and they have passed our tests. We will now categorize the Palm Pre, along with Research In Motion's BlackBerry, Windows Mobile devices, Nokia E-Series phones and Apple iPhones in the appliance category.

Gartner uses three levels to categorize smartphones: "Concierge" for basic business requirements, "Appliance" for heavy-duty business use (Blackberry wins out here), and "Platform" for the really hardcore stuff (Windows Mobile is the leader here).  The Appliance level is the main level, so it's great to see the Pre graduate to it.

Next up, an interview with a Palm VP who talk Pre in business and hints at an upgrade to Universal Search coming down the pike.

Palm's Vice-President of Business Products, John Traynor, has taken a break from the Treo Pro to submit himself to an interview about the Pre and business. There's not much in there that devoted Pre fans don't already know, but we do like his comments on webOS being a platform that business can trust they can depend on for many years:

Those customers appreciate that kind of “future-proofing” and are telling us they are confident about seeing us deliver more updates, and more value, as the platform matures.

The oft-forgotten truth about smartphones in business is that the upgrade cycle looks nothing like the consumer upgrade cycle -- it's a much longer time between phones for these folks and so knowing that the OS will not only be around but continue to see upgrades is highly important.

Traynor also points out that the Pre is the first smartphone to support multiple Exchange accounts (ironically, he does this twice) and hints that Universal Search is due for an upgrade sometime soon:

[...] universal search goes beyond searching what’s on the device by also searching the web. There are certainly some interesting ways to extend that capability even further, and we’re thinking about things like that

We like the sound of that - currently there's a bitter taste in our mouth when we say "Universal Search," because its limitations are manifold when compared to spotlight on the iPhone.