Verizon and Palm pulling out the advertising stops 80
Sun, 21 Feb 2010 12:58 pm EST 
If you’ve watched any TV in the last week you’ve probably seen an ad for the Palm Pre Plus on Verizon, and maybe even one for the Pixi Plus. But TV land isn’t the only place you’ll see Palm gear advertised - as we saw earlier in the week with the Pixi Plus Verizon BOGO ad destined for a weekly newspaper. Newspapers are old media, baby. Signs on the street are where it’s at these days, with people walking around their cities and stuff. As such, we’ve received shots from around the country of reader running into Palm and Verizon advertising for the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus. It’s in office towers, its at bus stops, and its in art festivals... in Miami!
We know you’re all worked up on the idea of Miami in February, but we’re going to throw some ice on that and take you to Minneapolis, where Ryan found the below ad plastered on a wall in his office tower. As you can see, this one is all Palm, and even though it features the Pre Plus, there’s no Verizon branding to be seen. Is it the best “this is webOS” ad we’ve seen before? Not really, but it’s not easy to show off multi-tasking and unobtrusive notifications on a miniature billboard, or on a big one for that matter. On the other hand, Synergy is easy to show off, and we can guarantee that Exchange icon’s going to catch more than a few office worker eyes. Targeted advertising = win.
Okay, now for Miami. Forum member JAHLuv7 was in sunny Florida and decided to swing by Miami’s Coconut Grove Art Festival. Nestled amongst outdoor booths of fine cuisine, artwork, and live performances was a booth from Verizon. At first glance you’d think it was all about Verizon, but upon closer inspection we found that this booth was all about the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus, with devices on hand for live demos from. A Palm rep was even on hand and Verizon employees held contests throughout the day to give away Pre Plus phones to festival-goers. More pictures are here, in the PreCentral forum. If you're not already a member, you really should consider joining.
And on the way out, JAHLuv7 spotted more Pre Plus advertising, this time at the bus stop. This was another ad done all by Palm, and sporting the same “Life moves fast. Don’t miss a thing” mantra from the Minneapolis office tower ad. Unlike that previous ad, this one shows you how it all fits together. In one view you get instant messaging, email, and voicemail and the simplest and clearest of explanations: Get notifications without interruption.
Miami’s not the only place with bus stop ads from Palm. Cambridge, Massachusetts has got them too, as danib62 let us know. He snapped this Pixi Plus ad, also a Palm-only creation, that tries its hardest to explain how the cards metaphor multi-tasking that defines webOS works, but we can help but wonder if it would have worked better as one of those old-school multiplex holograms to show off the actual switching of apps. Regardless, we’re starting to notice a theme from Palm here: Life moves fast. Don’t miss a thing.
Verizon's mail marketing division got in on the action too. James, a subscriber to Big Red's landline service, recently received this three-pane fold-out from Verizon. The mailer touts both the Pre Plus and the Pixi Plus, puts some emphasis on the BOGO promotion, and tackles Synergy and notifications.
You've heard the phrase "go big or go home", right? If not, this Palm billboard that forum member Palmwebos posted, taken by @dragongears ought put that into perspective. By our guesstimation, that Pre Plus is close to 60 feet tall - not quite pocketable even for King Kong.
Lastly, Jahir tipped us on an email he received from Best Buy, notifying him that they too have the Verizon Pre Plus and would be more than happy to sell it to us. Indeed, Best Buy does have the Pre Plus on sale, but by golly you can get it for less from PreCentral!
80 Comments
great more adsmeans more sales and more developers need I say mor
It's funny this was posted...just yesterday I was driving to LA along the 60 freeway and saw 3 or 4 new Palm billboards along the freeway for the Pre and Pixi.
Downtown Manhattan is full of ads from Palm too, literally every 2 blocks...
Here is a thought, well, maybe a few.
1. Things are not going great for Palm. Development is slow and they're not capturing the market share they need to truly grow and develop.
2. We believe that VZ is behind droid in a big way for the short term. droid is dependent on Android/Google. Google has weak inroads with TMO but is really becoming a wireless power monger on their own.
3. ATT has Apple as a tech partner.
4. Palm has a long history of being a tech partner with Sprint, but collectively, they lack the resources needed to compete and develope.
5. VZ lacks one of these partnerships and we know they prefer to call the shots and not be dependent on 3rd parties to decide what VZ should make available to customers. (i.e. dismembered O/S's and ala cart services).
SOOOOOOOOO,...Can VZ be setting up for;
A: Acquistion of Palm to get webos and Palm's resources to develop smartphones? (People, trademarks, patents, brands)
or
B: A long term technical partnership where Palm has highest influence to take Palm where VZ wants it to go (good luck getting that from Apple or Google) and Palm is allowed to make secondary/inferior offerings to other carriers (like we have now).
Looking at the synergy of VZ providing the network, money and management, Motorola's leverage producing hardware and Palm creating an O/S with VZ funding (directly or not) its development, you end up with a super team that could rival Apple/ATT and Google in the long run.
Has this partnership started already? Is this a test to see if Palm/VZ can be viable. Or is VZ actually interested in high sales of Palm and not just use them as a bait/switch to move prospective buyers to the droid?
Any thoughts?
I think neither A nor B look feasible. No way Palm (or any other manufacturer) would be purchased by a carrier. If VZW owns Palm, then Palm wouldn't be selling phones with Sprint, TMo, AT&T, not to mention overseas. And Verizon is already pretty into Android (though I think they're noticing its limitations).
Personally I think if ANYONE was going to pick up Palm as a takeover it would be someone like Nokia. And that might be a good thing(though it might be horrible, also). Nokia builds solid and incredibly powerful products but the UI isn't really there. Imagine webOS on a really powerful, really sturdy, long battery life, crazy megapixel phone. It just about brings a tear to my eye.
And if I may...when the Droid was released on Verizon I honestly thought Palm was screwed. But after getting to play with a Droid for several months (and getting used to Android 2.0) I have to say that it doesn't touch webOS in terms of ease of use. And as much as I might love my linux machine I'm typing on now, I don't want to have a linux feel to my cellphone. And I think Android still has a linux-y feel to it. Actually, I think that Windows Phone 7 Series should be scaring the hell out of Palm. Because even though I'm a big big big fan of webOS, WinPho7 really has me interested.
I find it odd that a few years ago, Windows Mobile could be put on basically any device, with any hardware specs, and any skin, etc that the manufacturer/user wanted. And it was a freaking mess. And then Microsoft kicks out WinPho7 and basically take an Apple/Palm approach to it, being VERY specific with the hardware requirements. Meanwhile, Android can be installed on basically anything, with any hardware specs, with any software version, with any skin, etc. I think Android is skirting down the dangerous road of Windows Mobile.
Palm may be worth more as VZ's o/s than as an 8th place phone maker in a consolidating device market. Palm doesn't dominate any world market. WEBOS is around like 6th or 7th place in an environment that will likely support about 3 O/S's in about 5 years. Its going to be hard to jump ahead when they don't have the size or money to work with.
I agree droid is not the killer that VZ made it out to be, nor are any of the HTC's that come out every four weeks. But collectively, they are spreading the android system around and keeping the interest of users and developers.
MS releasing Win7mo kinda kills the thought they'll pick up Palm. Dell moving forward without their help. HP very quiet. Nokia and RIM remain as entities in need of webos, unless they're developing better web and multimedia interaction in their propietary efforts. Blackberry looks poised to collapse in a major way over the next three years as devices better blend entertainment with business. They're too sterile to be a fun phone.
My point, an underdeveloped o/s and intellectual property appear to be their only assets. And every day, 3rd parties are backing away from Palm (google, DTG, etc) so they could use VZ's leverage and money. Developing hardware and software as a small company does not appear to be a viable path for small efforts going forward.
People drink Koolaid and don't believe Elevation Partners did this to create an M&A opportunity. But that's what Venture Caplitalists do. They take an undervalued asset, inject some money, then ditch it when the market cap hits a suitable magnitude greater than their investment. Bono has no interest in selling phones. But if he can triple his money and move onto another cause, that's more like it. Palm appears to be stalled or falling further behind. EP will take what they can get, they have no reason to tolerate slow or backwards movement.
The evidence is showing that Palm is performing better than Droid upon release at Verizon.
Here is the reason why: When Droid was released at Verizon, there was much fanfare between Verizon, Google, and Motorola. In addition to Google
I can't read your posts.
They're too long.
They have to many "statements" that are not true. They didn't sell 500,000 Palms in month 1 at VZ as they only ordered (and not fully delivered 400,000.
Palm Market share is dropping precipitously as of december and Android is poised to lauch new phones on all carriers. Palm will never catch iPhone, never catch symbian, might catch BB if they don't refresh, and wont likely catch Android. Without M&A, Palm will just be waiting for the devil to take the hind most.
Here are some facts to show that Palm is succeeding at Verizon
Apparently you are not in the retail business. The 400,000 reportedly ordered was for the launch of the device at Verizon, to satisfy the initial demand. Companies adjust their production constantly depending upon demand. One analyst has already estimated (based upon market survey after launch) that Palm will sell 500,000 to 600,000 Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus phones at Verizon by February 28, 2010, which is 35 days after the January 25, 2010 launch. Palm does not need to catch anyone; all they have to do is to continue to perform at the current level.
Base upon the current numbers, Palm is now selling about 2 million phones per quarter between Verizon and Sprint; Palm is in less than 10 countries. Apple is in 190 countries and is selling approximately 8 million phones per quarter. So maybe the reason why Apple is selling more phones than Palm is because they are in many more countries. The bottom line is that Palm is doing extremely well.
I really do not think that you understand the concept behind Android. Android is not a company, it is a piece of software. Google does not make any money from Android.
All the Android companies are going to be small. They are going to split the Android business between themselves.
So at the end of the day Nokia, Palm, Apple, RIM, and Microsoft, because they each own their own products, are going to be the largest revenue earners in the cell phone market.
Clean it up.
First you say 500K in month 1.
Then you call me out, but then say 500k-600k in 6 weeks.
And we all know what (even unnamed) analysts are capable of saying about wireless. One says 120K, another says nearly a million.
There is no question Android is an o/s. Save your breath and dont tell me WebOS is not a company too? Dont be a moron.
Go write some code. Go inspire us to keep our Palm's rather than feel like we're being sold a bill of goods that the devlopers cannot or will not deliver.
Palm has about 5MM more devices to sell in the next 3.5 months to hit that 7MM mark you spouted for year 1 a few weeks ago. Good luck with that.
@PreDogs - You are a "Troll"
You have finally fallen apart. I always suspected that you lacked integrity. You have consistently blogged misinformation and your attempts at discrediting Palm has finally been revealed. You are actually a "Troll".
Oh, I'm a troll. You're running loose with unnamed analysts building WebOS into this kill-all, spouting their conjecture as "evidence". I'll let the numbers speak. Trying to reign in your hyperbole doesn't doesn't make my phone any better if I succeded. The sandbox is yours. Turn the sand, and the burried cat treasure, into gold.
@PreDogs - You are wrong again! "You make too many errors"
I operate with a high degree of credibility. When I make suppositions, I am bluntly clear so that my readers are aware that these are personal views. Actually, you just spelled out the trait I observed in you "sandbox". Now let me explain what I mean. I told you that you are not doing any intellectual work to arrive at your views - this is tantamount to living in a "sandbox". I gave you information (Analyst estimate of "500,000" to "600,000" Palm sales at Verizon in 35 days) you could easily research on the Internet to verify this claim, and instead of researching that information; you are accusing me of providing "unnamed analysts". Man, don't you know how to research information that is available to everyone?
Well let me prove you wrong; the data is from Deutsche Bank analyst Jonathan Goldberg.
You see, you accused me of "running loose" when in fact; you had no basis for such accusation. This is the whole problem with your statements about Palm. You just write without caring for the facts. You are wrong and are trying to discredit an entire company and its employees. People who behave this way are viewed as "bad".
Advise to PreDogs:
Please PreDogs, take some time to analyze and research comments people make before accusing them of intellectual ineptitude. You are making yourself look bad and quickly losing your credibility in this blog.
Swell, Goldberg sees Palm's value as an acquisition target in the next two years. Just like I said.
He sees 600,000 potential units at VZ for the Feb quarter. No one else does, but good for him. Palm will report, then we will know.
------------------------------------------
Thinker: "The evidence is showing that Palm is performing better than Droid upon release at Verizon."
Marketwatch: "Jonathan Goldberg of Deutsche Bank issued a note Friday disclosing a survey by the brokerage of 210 Verizon stores in 38 states, in which the Droid was favored by 63% of respondents compared to only 12% for Palm devices."
Oh well. Might be a typo.
----------------------------------------------
Thinker: "I operate with a high degree of credibility."
Of course you do, thanks for telling me that. I also love it when Faux News tells me they are "Fair and Balanced".
PreDogs - you twist everything you read; it's sad!
I really should stop replying to you - you are talking as if you did not graduate from high school. I must be talking to a kid. You are not even able to understand what you are reading.
The 63% is talking about Verizon employees pushing the Droid. It was also stated that this is a situation that would be rectified by better training. I am done with you, it's a waste of my time!
Please think before you write. I said "over" 500,000 in order to be conservative, but the actual figure given was 500k-600k. So from the standpoint of "logic" there is no contradiction - it is purely logical to say "over" 500,000! I am an engineer, computer science professional, and more; I am very careful with numbers.
You are wrong again; these analysts represent some of the biggest investment banks. It appears that you are not knowledge about the studies and reports on Palm that is prominently reported in the investment communities. No wonder you are making so many errors in your views, you are simply offering opinions without any research.
@PreDogs - Oh, I said "35 days"; that does not equate to 6 weeks. You simply are having a hard time processing information. You need to go back to school.
Point conceded, my apology, I had Jan 10 as the VZ date, but it was later January. Doesn't make the 5-600k number any more likely, but the time frame is a releatively reasonable comparison. Sorry.
@PreDogs, I am responding to this post: "Point conceded, my apology, I had Jan 10 as the VZ date, but it was later January. Doesn't make the 5-600k number any more likely, but the time frame is a releatively reasonable comparison. Sorry." The comment width is getting a little too tight!
------------
Why the 500,000 to 600,000 is reliable!
The 500,000 to 600,000 number for 35 days of Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus sales at Verizon was given by Deutsche Bank analyst Jonathan Goldberg. This outcome is likely because he researched the information. I based my statement on his analysis.
I want you to know what I have observed about you:
When arguing a point, you should always ask yourself, what "factual data" am I basing my views on? Also ask yourself the question, are there any available information that contradicts these views? Many people form opinions based upon their feelings "without using their brain to think". The more you "think" the more brilliant you become, the less you "think" the less "honorable" you become. You have an opportunity to grow intellectually at PreCentral, but first you need to make an effort to participate "honorably". Respect people, and solicit their help if you lack the skills to perform at their level. You could have simply asked me to provide my "source" to backup my claims about the 500,000 to 600,000 number; that would have been the honorable thing to do. But to try to discredit me "falsely" is not honorable. I do not hold any personal grudge against you; I would rather like to help you. I am a perfectionist and I know that not everyone has been trained to look at things analytically. But everyone could be civil and act as good citizens. It is a bad character flaw to constantly put down others - be they individuals of companies.
You should allow yourself to evolve intellectually. Ask simple questions like: are there any new developments that should cause me to change my views? Do people genuinely seem excited about this phone? What is the percentage of people at PreCentral that are excitedly looking forward to Flash 10.1, video recording, webOS 1.4, and a new version of the Palm Pre phone; versus people like "PreDogs" who are always "without fail" bashing the Palm Pre? You may be surprised to find yourself in the very small minority.
Any mobile, any time.
ads look awesome... a lot better than the borg queen. Was driving through Manhattan this morning actually and saw Palm advertising on the side of a bus. Looking forward to seeing more ads showcasing the true power of webOS.
Much better than the borg queen!
+1 for the Borg Queen reference =)
+2 on the Borq Queen
Ironically, the Borq queen ignored the wants and needs of the species she tried to assimilate. Her subjects regenerated in a wireless charger. Information, commands and archived data were distributed through a collective "cloud". In the end her world was destroyed by people that wanted options and not be forced into new ways that a select few thought were better.
Did I mention I'd become an endorser of Palm if I had terrestrial synch and continued support for Palm PIMs? Until then, resistence despite its futily, will continue. Picard out.
I've seen this add several times in NYC in da subway & on busses
This is what we need. This is what Palm needs. This is what webOS needs. Ok...not so much the "we" part, but the ladder is true to the core. With this kind of exposure, our beloved webOS can gain the momentum it needs to grab a bigger piece of the mobile OS pie! It puzzles me why this didn't happen before they released on Verizon...and instead went with the icky mom commercials. Guess they (Verizon) learned their lesson.
this is great to see!
Wow! It's an ad-splosion!
Sales = Profit
Profit = Research
Research = Bad A** tech for us!
I JUST WANT A PALM PHONE ON AT&T!!!!!! GODDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD *im stuck on at&t....
They have the palm centro on AT&T. (if you want it i'll ship it to you) I had that when i was on AT&T. AT&T sucks though so in a way i wish the pre does not go to AT&T. I cancelled with them before my contract expired. I paid the $180 early termination fee. I'm making that money back now by being on Sprint. I was paying almost $85 a month with AT&T for 450 minutes, 200 texts and unlimited data. Now with Sprint my bills are about $60 a month (company discount) I get 450 minutes, unlimted cell 2 cell, nights and weekends start at 7pm-7am, Talking GPS, TV, unlimited data and multi-media text. You get more for less $ with sprint vs. AT&T. Sprint has amazing customer service. AT&T customer service just sucks. They gave me the run around so many times and never resolved any of my issues. In a way i'm glad AT&T customer service sucks. I walked into an AT&T store to activate an old iPhone I inherited but they told me to just buy the new one because they can't activate the one I brought it. They told me to go home, download iTunes and active it, But I told them I run linux at home so I can't run iTunes and they still tried to talk me into buying a new phone for them to activate it. ... Anyway, sorry for the long response but i do not regret leaving AT&T and paying the ETF. I'm surprised sprint is an underdog when their prices, technology and customer service beats AT&T
They are all over NYC too. I have seen a few recently on the streets and this morning I saw them plastered on every billboard in the Union Square subway station. I would have snapped a photo w/ my Pixi but I was late for class.
i love it...it looks like we r going in the right direction now
Bring it Palm... Im rooting as hard as I can and to as mnay people as I can reach.... Love my Pre and in love with webOS....
Too bad Sprint lacks the UMPH for the Pre/Palm!
http://forums.precentral.net/palm-pre/231248-new-palm-advertisment-photo... Here is my thread which was also mentioned in the article, we're basically posting all the pictures we see of Palm advertisements.
Too bad Sprint lacks the UMPH for the Pre/Palm!
that nice, but I want 1.4 :-)
+1
I started a thread yesterday afternoon on this same topic. Check out the photos of the Ads and upload your own to share:
What Print Ads Have You Seen in the Wild...?
http://forums.precentral.net/palm-pre/231193-what-print-ads-have-you-see...
F.i.n.a.l.l.y.
The ads are actually decent
shout @ the devil
I commute with the LIRR and noticed them at literally 5 stations in a row on the train. I'll have to see if I can grab a pic on monday
Go Palm Go.
I really like this awesome internet device / smart phone. It's good to see advertising highlighting the Pre's unique strengths.
I just heard a Sprint advertisement on Hulu, although it included the Samsung Moment and Blackberry Curve, as well as the Pixi. But at least it got some props.
This is all very good news to hear, for Palm. Ads everywhere means win for all of us. I can't wait to see the next Palm iteration on Sprint.
Loved my Pre since day 1. So excited to see the ramped up advertising! Just saw a huge billboard off 60 freeway in City of Industry area (Los Angeles County) and close to a Fry's Electronics, perfect to attract fellow techno geeks! Go Palm!
Marketing is what Palm has been missing. It is what Apple is good at. Even Droid was doing good at marketing. So it is VERY good to see some money thrown at marketing. Sure hope it helps and that they keep it up over the long run.
Thanks for posting the photo I took with my Palm Pre on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood and uploaded to Twitter from my @dragongears account which you credited to forum member Palmwebos.
has anyone been to the Montgomery bart station in SF(the one thats in the background on palm.com)? literally every ad there is a pre/pixi ad.
Yes. I snapped pics from the Muni side of Montgomery Metro. See my post here: http://forums.precentral.net/palm-pre/231193-what-print-ads-have-you-see... and also twitter @wallbounce. Pics taken with my Sprint Pre :)
I actually live in miami. And ever since the first pre came out there has been ads of pre's and pixi's(when they came out) on almost every bus stop here. And I get a feeling verizon is advertising the pre plus now all of a sudden because maybe they are not getting the iPhone and were saving for that... but thats just a theory.
I noticed a bunch of Palm ads as well. Even at a few Chelsea, MA bus stops which is next to Boston.
I've been seeing a lot of Pres in peoples hands lately,and just yesterday I had a (a really hot girl)notice my pre and tell me how bad she wanted 1.Palm is reaching more poeple than you might think.
I guess sprint was waiting for verizon to do the advertising for them. Verizon has alot more re$ources then sprint. Good to see palm pushing WebOS!!
I drive a delivery truck up here in Chicago and Palm Pre is plastered over almost every bus stop up here. I've been noticing that for a month or so now. Well back to multitasking at the bar. See multitasking on this phone is so easy you can do it while at a bar drinking a beer and shootin pool. I have precentral up, phonebook, text messages, email, yahoos web page and google going all while listening to Junior Wells on Slacker radio and shootin pool... Music sucks here tonight. Ahahaha. Shootin pool and flippin cards.
I saw a bunch of billboard ads in San Jose, Ca. GO PALM GO!!!!!
For what it's worth, Palm & O2 are advertising big in Europe too. I've seen quite a few full page ads in the main papers.
My wife and I were in the Sprint store and I was looking for the Palm display. There was no Pre on display and a Pixi with a dead battery. The Pixi charger cord was bent and broke. My wife asked about the Pre and they said the alarm kept going off so they decided to take it off display. We need advertising to get people's interest up.
Why is the voicemail message at the top third of the screen covering the guy? One of the selling points is the notification at the Bottom of the screen. The text message isn't at the bottom either.
Great to see all the advertising tho. I feel like I'm the one pushing Palm on people, its nice to see Palm doing it too.
i'm not sure why it took almost an entire year for someone to start advertising webOS devices, but it's better late than never I suppose. I just hope it isn't too little too late.
I wish Sprint made as hard an advertising push back when it was still exclusive...
All right! It appears that Palm's done playing grab-ass and ready to start moving phones! Sit back and behold the infinite power of mass marketing.
Hopefully the will train their sales staff to push the Palm also. Does no good to have all of this advertising and stupid sales people.
I work at a sprint corporate store. Our particular team absolutely sells the hell out of webOS, and most of us have a Pre. I definitely agree with the above posters on a couple points though.. it's really up to the sales staff what they push. I know a couple people that work in Verizon stores and they all have Droids, and really aren't selling through their Palm inventory much at all yet. Perhaps it's different at other locations. I hope that their new advertising drives enough webOS business to Verizon to do some good!
@jfphysics: Ugh, sorry to hear about your bad experience at that store. Time to try a new one. =)
If Sprint wants to be a future premiere partner with Palm they cannot just take the phone for granted. Sales is not something you just leave in the hands of the salespeople, you have to have a corporate policy. Sprint should make sure that a certain percentage of their employees at every store are using a Palm device. Palm inquiries should be directed to those personnel. The corporate office should hold store managers accountable to make sure that their premium devices are available for demonstration. Store statistics should be obtained to see which stores are falling behind. Effective sales is not rocket science, and a company like Sprint can ill afford for Verizon to beat them at the basic business of running a business properly. Sprint's problem is not money, it is execution!
I wish I'd grabbed a pic now to add to the collection... theres a new billboard that fits this theme on I-76 in Philly. Keep it up palm!
The bus I rode this morning (NYC) had a Palm ad on it, I've seem a few with the same ad. That's really good.
These are all over buses in Chicago too.
im passing through Philly on a bus and i saw one on top of a building just as i was reading this.
I saw a billboard ad here in Dallas on Thursday night. I almost wrecked my car and started cheering! Marketing is what Palm needs. Android market share is a product of marketing and multiple handset manufacturers flooding the market with devices. Palm will always be at a disadvantage as long as there are multiple big companies marketing Android based devices. I understand why Palm wants to maintain control of their devices, but it probably hurts them in market share, but helps in quality control and user experience.
At the end of the day, Palm is going to do much better than the individual companies pushing Android devices. All those companies are fighting among each other to sell one operating system with different interfaces. Palm has the advantage of having one seamless operation to design the phone (like the Palm Pre and Palm Pixi) and the operating system (webOS). If you ask any company selling Android what they would rather own, Android or Palm's webOS, the answer is simple, it is webOS. Look at Nokia, as large as they are, there is general consensus among the expert in the cell phone industry that Palm's webOS is superior to anything that Nokia has. Yet Nokia sells over 400 million phones per year. Android has possibly less than 3% of the global phone market.
No one could image that eight months after Palm released the Palm Pre smartphone with webOS that we will all be talking about Verizon and Palm pushing out all these great ads.
I saw a huge Palm billboard ad in Dallas along Central Expy.
I've seen the Verizon Pre ads running at the video billboards at the malls in CT too - especially in the food court where people spend more time. I saw the Pre ad rotate through 5 times in 15 minutes. That's some good exposure. And, there is a Verizon store at the malls too.
Explain why Verizon didn't push the Pre Plus at launch. I think that they didn't really have confidence in it based on the mess that Sprint made with it. Turns out when they discovered that people actually liked it and that it sells itself, they saw that they could make a ton of money off of it. Verizon had no phone with the ease of use and power of the iphone. I don't think they saw that at first.
At the Verizon store that I went to last week, the sales rep was pushing the Droid even though I explicitly asked for the Palm Pre. He questioned why I wanted one.
Here's what happened. I wanted to buy my girlfriend a new cell phone for Valentine's Day. After trying out friends' Droids and Palm Pres, she decided that she preferred the Pre and did not want a Droid.
So we visited the Verizon store at the local mall, and before we could even find the Pre on display, a salesman approached us asking if we needed help. I said, "We've got an easy sale for you. We want to buy the Palm Pre. Do you have them in stock?"
And instead of taking us directly to the register to ring one up, he questioned why we wanted one! He said, "Before I sell you one, may I ask what you are planning on using the phone for?" I asked why he wanted to know that and he said, "Well, most of our customers prefer the Droid over the Palm Pre, and I want to make sure you're not making a mistake."
WHOA!!!
I said, "Well, it's for my girlfriend (who was standing next to me) and she's used both the Droid and the Palm Pre, and she prefers the Pre." He said, "Well, okay, I'll sell you one if that's the one you want." And he took out his personal Droid and started launching apps and said, "I don't know. I love my Droid."
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Palm is toast if that's what Verizon is telling their salespeople to say when people come in asking about the Palm. And not only that, he made us feel like we were purchasing a second-rate phone during the entire purchase process!
By the way, my girlfriend is thrilled with her Palm Pre. She likes it much better than her old BlackBerry Curve.
There are ads all over Chicago. On trains, on train platforms, saw one on a bus the other day, and there's a huge billboard on a 6 street intersection by my apartment. Exciting to see them out, especially since no one I talk to even knows that Palm makes phones.
In Spain is happening the same, telefonica is totally biased towards the iphone.
It's really difficult to see a palm here, while your eyes are constantly bombarded with the apple device.
The first palm I managed to touch and see was almost dismantled and with no battery left. The iphone was brilliantly disposed for people to touch and see. I'm an exception as I read a lot about this device and I wanted no other.
Palm didn't choose the right carrier here either.
Moreover, not being able to download or buy apps is desperating me.
Palm, hurry up!
Palm has launched major ad blitz in Washington DC metro stations. A bit of overkill with every poster space in the entire station (L'Enfant Plaza) plastered with Pre and Pixi shots but a pretty smart move in a town with probably the highest number of smartphone users in the country. Go Palm!