Tag: palm (Page 7 of 8)

Sprint’s Too Good For Long Lines

June 4, 2009 / Jeff Morgan

According to Mark Elliot, a spokesperson for Sprint, the company doesn’t want long lines come launch day for the Palm Pre this Saturday. “We’re actually trying to manage the exact opposite,” Mr. Elliott said.

It’s just like any company to spin the low hype generated by what must be terrible exclusivity negotiations into a boon for customer service. Part of Sprint’s new plan for the Pre rollout includes in-store tutorials for every Pre customer. “What we’re trying to do is not have people backed up waiting so customers feel rushed,” Mr. Elliott said. “We want each customer to get the experience.”

I don’t know about you, but I have plenty of fond memories of waiting in long lines to get the newest gadget, game, what have you. The air reeks with anticipation, everyone’s excited to be there knowing they’ll walk out with a new toy in hand. Well, early Pre adopters, you’ll get none of that.

Source: NY Times

General Gadgets

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Verizon to Sell Palm Pre, Storm 2 In the Next 6 Months

May 28, 2009 / Jeff Morgan

Palm Powered Verizon The latest from Lowell McAdam, top exec for the Verizon/Vodafone venture, has Verizon selling the Palm Pre and the Blackberry Storm in the next “6 months or so.” The Storm 2 is no big surprise. Plenty of people have had their hands on that things for weeks. But the Pre, too? We knew Sprint’s exclusivity contract was short, but 6 months hadn’t even crossed my mind. Earlier this week AT&T announced similar plans to snatch up the Pre, but made no projection as to when.

This really shakes things up, both for Palm and Sprint. For Palm, it could mean new life. I know plenty of people who don’t have an iPhone because of AT&T. Verizon could be enough to make them consider the sleek Palm smartphone as an alternative. For Sprint, though, this is like a cancer diagnosis. The company bled more than a million customers in the last quarter of 2008. If Palm’s launch stock is as scrawny as rumors say, they could be out of phones and out of exclusivity with Palm before they have a chance to dig their toes in. Could Sprint bounce back from having their most-hyped phone on Verizon? I wouldn’t hold my breath for that one.

Source: Reuters

Mobile, News

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Palm Pre Plays Nice With iTunes

May 28, 2009 / Jeff Morgan

According to Fortune Magazine the Palm Pre works seamlessly with iTunes. So seamlessly, in fact, they claim iTunes treats the phone just like an iPod or even an iPhone, the only exception being older files downloaded when DRM was still involved. I think I can actually hear the vein in Jobs’ temple throbbing.

Of course, we’ve already heard Apple COO Tim Cook say that anyone attempting to jack the intellectual property of the iPhone will be hunted down and hung from the high walls at Cupertino for the birds. I’m pretty sure that’s how the quote went. I’m not sure, though, that this little detail will make much of a difference to the serious Pre enthusiasts. Sure, it’s nice, and could save a few headaches, but transferring music from a computer to a device is rarely difficult, especially when there’s no DRM involved, and the Pre has its own ways of importing contacts and the like. If iTunes functionality is a consumer’s primary concern, I’m gonna guess that person is going to stick with an iPhone.

Apple, iPhone, Mobile

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The Pre is a Great Phone but the Wrong Phone

May 26, 2009 / Jeff Morgan

The recently leaked Pre launch guide has set Palm fans atwitter, ready to get their paws on one the minute the phone launches. That is, if Sprint will let them.

In what I find to be the most interesting page (11 if you’re keeping track) of the launch missive, Sprint lays down a heavy warning: “We can’t afford to sell the Pre to the wrong customers.” My knee jerk reaction sounds a lot like “no shit,” especially considering the rumors of a tiny launch stock. But Palm means more than senior citizens and paraplegics. So who is the wrong customer, and why don’t they deserve a Pre?

According to Palm, the wrong customers are the IT business users. The folks who need to run applications. The people with strict mobile device security protocols. A lot of the same people who really want the device. But when those people set foot in a Sprint Store on June 6th, Sprint reps are advised to try to sell them the Treo Pro. This makes sense. Salespeople are there to identify your needs, and then sell you a product to meet or exceed those needs (preferably at atmospheric price points). So why sell you the Pre when it falls short? You should get the phone you need, right?

Right. The Pre isn’t the phone you need. It’s right there in company literature, just mangled and twisted to make it sound like the customer’s wrong, instead of the phone. Make no mistake, though, it’s the phone, and the Pre is going to miss the mark on launch day and probably fade out of existence before long. I’m not talking to you, the individual user who might love Palm’s new features and developer-friendly OS. I’m talking about market share, which is what Palm needs to stay solvent. The Pre was the device to release before Apple sold 20 million iPhones. Before the app store sold a billion apps. Then the Pre could have been Palm’s savior, instead its dying breath.

It’s not that the Pre isn’t a great device. From the hardware to the software, the smooth OS to an overall excellent user experience the Pre is a great device, it’s just the wrong device, and it could be Palm’s last. If the Pre fails to gain significant ground and fast, there’s little hope for a financially stable Palm in the near future.

Apple, iPhone, Mobile, News

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Best Buy to Get 4 Pres Per Store, Radioshack 2

May 22, 2009 / Jeff Morgan

Yes, you read that correctly. According to a ‘most-trusty of ninja’ at the Boy Genius Report, Best Buy will only receive 4,250 phones from Palm for the June 6th Pre launch. With an estimated 1,000 stores (estimate from a Best Buy Mobile rep), that’s just four phones per store for launch.

The story doesn’t get much better for other retailers. Radio Shack is only expected to see the Pre at 721 of their stores, each of which are expected to receive two units. The 721 stores fall in the highest expected consumer base for the Pre.

This is looking like terrible news for Palm, and it’s definitely the wrong way to go about generating hype. It makes me wonder what happened. Did they short-order touch screens? Are they worried about network stability? Was this just really poor decision making? Whatever it was, it’s bad, and I’m guessing this will go down as a bad year for Palm.