Talkin' Pre (& Pixi) - Week ending 19 Dec
Verizon... wow! Palm's earnings... owww!
This was a week with much anticipation. RIMM was the star of Thursday's earning reports. Palm brought up the rear and the stock got pounded the day after. On the positive side, there was buzz about an expansion of carriers (i.e. Verizon) and CES announcement(s). So let's talk Pre and Pixi!
According to notes from Dieter, during the investor conference call, CEO Jon Rubinstein confirmed that webOS 1.3.5 is coming soon and will have a bevy of improvements, including:
- Allowing for installation of more apps
- Enhances WiFi and app performance
- Improved battery life
- Increased speed and responsiveness on the Palm Pixi
MarketWatch's Dan Gallagher discussed the earnings on Friday.
The sharp decline in sell-though of its wireless devices is what seemed most alarming to investors. By midday, Palm shares slid nearly 18% to $9.66. The stock is still up more than 200% for the year.
There were positive reports earlier in the week, as PALM was was upgraded to a buy rating by MKM Partners. That came a day after another broker upgrade for a stock that has slipped by more than 30% over the last two months on concerns about sales of the company's new line of smartphones -- on which its future rests.
"We are upgrading Palm to buy because we believe that many of the risks we saw to the stock have subsided," Tero Kuittinen of MKM wrote in a note to clients.
Verizon Training for Palm webOS? That seems to be the case. John Paczkowski of Digital Daily wrote this post which talked about potential new wireless carriers for Palm webOS devices. And Dieter did this write-up about CES and another about a Palm Pre Plus at Verizon.
Looking Ahead... At PC World, Jared Newman wrote a piece titled
"5 Questions About Palm's 2010 Phone Plans."
Palm Pre Lands on Twitter 2009 Trend List
Smartphone Round Robin is Underway! On Monday, the third annual Smartphone Round Robin was announced. During the next six weeks, editors from the Smartphone Experts' community sites —AndroidCentral.com, CrackBerry.com (BlackBerry), NokiaExperts.com, PreCentral.net, TheiPhoneBlog.com and WMExperts.com (Windows Mobile) — will be learning what it's like to live "on the other side of the fence" as they compare their everyday smartphone for each of its competitors.
The smartphones that will be used this time around are: Android DROID and Hero, BlackBerry Bold 9700 and Storm2, iPhone 3GS, Nokia N900 and N97 Mini, Palm Pre and Pixi, and the Windows Phone HD2 and Tilt2.
To learn more, go to www.smartphoneroundrobin.com.
"Palm has all of the pieces on the board in front of it. And it's calculating and executing moves months ahead. Microsoft has pulled back and is shuffling its deck once more. Finally it realized that what it was putting out wasn't competitive (despite its following). Can a company the size of Microsoft stop what it's doing, retreat to Redmond, Wash., and start anew, like Palm did with webOS, the Pixi and the Pre? Perhaps. But Palm finished its time in the desert much sooner than Microsoft began its trek. What will Palm bring in 2010? And will Microsoft be able to meet it, in mind share as well as future market share? News at 11."
And here's the video.
Palm to Boost Marketing, App Program to Grow Sales. Nancy Gohring of IDG News Service wrote a story about Palm's plans for its webOS developer program and how Palm has started stepping up marketing in an effort to boost continued lagging sales.
Apps, apps, apps... The PreCentral team has been on top of apps being added to the catalog as well as other app-related stories.
- Google Quietly Updates Maps For webOS. Robert wrote about "a number of notable enhancements."
- Milestone for Pandora Web Radio
Don't Miss the New How-to posts...
- How to Get a Twitchy, Pre-Release Version of Google Latitude on webOS Without a Patch
- How to Clean up your Google Contacts
- How to Use Preware for Homebrew Apps, Patches, and Themes
What's Tweetin'... In addition to the topics above, here are some highlights from Tweets during the week:
- Positive thoughts on the "Give Fun, Get Fun" ads for the Pixi
- Palm Apps for Education
- Palm Pre vs. Motorola Droid by preThinking. Daniel Rodriguez wrote, "...webOS really struggles when switching between different views like month, day, and week as well as struggling to jump to the next day or week on the calendar. Sometimes I find myself waiting 2-3 seconds to get to the next day on a calendar and it can be extremely frustrating. Another thing the Droid calendar has is an agenda view. This is something Palm overlooked and I am not too sure why but WebOS needs an Agenda view. Both calendars work well enough to get the job done. Speed is something Palm needs to focus on to make the calendar truly worthwhile."
- Gadgeteer on Pre after Six Months. Craig Froehle wrote, "...now that I’ve lived with webOS, I just can’t go back to my Palm OS Centro. So, I have a choice to make in the very near future. Do I renew my Sprint contract and get a Pre of my own, or do I explore another platform, like Android, which spans all the major carriers? The glorious part about this dilemma is that it’s a dilemma at all…never before have we, consumers, had so many compelling options."
- eWeek: Palm Pixi Packs Surprising Business Features in Small Smartphone Form Factor
- Palm Pre - A Special Gadget in Your Palm.
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Happy Holidays!
That's a wrap!
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