“You know the beautiful thing: June 29, 2009, is the two- year anniversary of the first shipment of the iPhone,” Elevation Partners (which owns a huge portion of Palm) co-founder Roger McNamee told Bloomberg in March. “Not one of those people will still be using an iPhone a month later.”
A week from tomorrow is the big day for McNamee’s prediction. How’s it looking? Not so hot. Okay, awful.
Yes, it’s still early in the Palm Pre’s life. And yes, there is plenty of room in the rapidly expanding mobile universe for more than one device. But it was McNamee who specifically threw down this gauntlet against the iPhone. And that makes charts like the one below, that much more amusing.
Now, it has to be noted that the research company providing this data, JNK Wireless Consultant iGR, is said to be fairly new. But that doesn’t mean that they did a poor job in obtaining the numbers that they did. This chart comes after they completed a series of checks last week across 50 Sprint stores nationwide in top markets.
Further, they have a lot more details of what they found in their checks.
Here are the Pre “highlights”:
- No stores this week reported that they had currently sold out of Palm Pre (compared to three stores last week and no stores the week before).
- Approximately 65 percent of the stores contacted said they had ‘plenty’ of devices on hand and did not anticipate any shortages.
- iGR’s channel checks again show that Sprint is meeting the current demand for the device with the inventories available in the stores.
- None of the stores willing to discuss sales reported they had sold significantly more than 25 units this week (down from a maximum of 50 last week). In Week 3, the upper ‘ceiling’ on sales was 75 units in some stores and this compares with 20 percent of stores that reported selling around 100 units in Week 2.
- 40 percent of the stores willing to discuss volumes said they had sold less than 10 units this week (compared to 30 percent last week). 37 percent said they had sold 10 – 20 units and another 23 percent said they had sold 20 – 30 units.
- This week, 95 percent of the stores indicated that Palm Pre sales were a mixture of both new subscribers and upgrades to existing Sprint subscribers. But just one of the stores contacted said that the majority of the Pre sales this week were to new Sprint customers, compared to 7 percent last week and 25 percent the week before.
- iGR also asked this week about the number of Pre demo units that were available in the Sprint stores for prospective customers – this question was added as a result of stories indicating that customers were having to wait to see a demo unit. As in Weeks 4 and 5, none of the stores contacted had more than 2 Pre demo units on hand (even though all stores had sufficient inventory to meet current demand). 93 percent of stores had a single Pre demo unit in the store – the remainder had just two units.
- iGR has been tracking the sales of the Palm pre over the last six weeks through these weekly channel checks. It has been clear for the last few weeks that Sprint is now meeting the current demand and that the ’sold out’ scenarios common just after launch have ended – if they do occur, they are a temporary scenario while the store waits that day for a new shipment. Finding a Palm Pre at a Sprint store should not be difficult at the current time.
- Sales are also dropping gradually. By looking at the average number of sales per store, iGR has ESTIMATED the number of Palm Pre sales in the Sprint channel by week (see attached figure). Sales have dropped significantly from the initial launch volumes but also seem to be stabilizing at about 22,000 – 25,000 per week
To make sure it got a clearer pictures, iGR also went to Apple stores around the country to check the iPhone 3GS numbers. It ran checks with 52 stores. The story is quite a bit different:
- All but two of the stores contacted said that sales of the 3G S were strong – the two dissenting stores said that sales were ’steady’ from last week. No stores reported that sales had decreased since the launch of the 3G S.
- Compared to last week when 76 percent said they were frequently selling out of 3G S, this week 43 percent reported frequently selling out.
- The remainder (57 percent) has some 3G S in stock, although many acknowledged that supplies were limited.
- Of those stores that were frequently selling out, 45 percent of the stores said they still were using waiting lists to control distribution.
- 80 percent of stores had data on the number of iPhone purchasers that were new to the iPhone. Of this 80 percent of stores, 15 percent said that 40 percent of sales were to those new to iPhone, 48 percent said that 50 percent of sales were new to iPhone, 35 percent said 60 percent of sales were new to iPhone and just 2 percent said that 70 percent of sales were to new iPhone users.
- Over all of the stores surveyed, the average number of sales to those new to iPhone was 52 percent.
- Of those iPhone 3G S purchasers who already had an iPhone, on average 55 percent were coming from an iPhone 2G. The remainder were upgrading from an iPhone 3G.
- iGR also asked if sales of the existing 3G iPhone has changed since the price dropped to $99. All of the stores reported that sales had increased as a result of the price drop
Now again, this data all comes from a sampling of Sprint and Apple stores. But at the very least, the trends seem pretty clear. The iPhone 3GS is selling very, very well (as was further evidenced today during Apple’s 3Q earnings call), the Palm Pre? Still pretty ho-hum. And things still seem to be slowing down.
“Not one of those people will still be using an iPhone a month later.” Yeah. We’ll revisit that again in 8 days.
But the graph up top does have a nice “L” shape. “L” in this case, doesn’t appear to stand for “Love”.
people are still writing “3G S”? I must be getting old because that is annoying the zune out of me.
clearly they didn’t read my in-depth report http://www.tech...e-3gs-no-space/
Interesting data but not ultra scientific. Sampling is good but I wonder about extrapolating this into a death knell for the Pre. When will Sprint release their official numbers? I think most of us already know that Pre was not the bang up success McNamee said it would be. But Pre can be content to be number 2, perhaps.
As I noted, this is far from a death knell. This is just another good data set to showcase the brilliance of McNamee’s statement.
McNamee sure went overboard with that comment but I couldn’t be happier with the Pre. I almost bought an iPhone earlier this year but it was worth waiting for the Pre. WebOS, I feel, is better in every way than the iPhone, and the network on Sprint is great. 3g on at&t is a joke. Sure, pre does not have 50K apps, but I have all I need for every day use… popular iphone apps like shazam are impressive and cute, but I can live without them for now. I doubt the accuracy of the above numbers, and predict that pre sales will remain solid, your L graph will turn into a U.
Having said that, I’m very happy with iPhone sales, I own apple stock
People… please keep buying iphones in droves!
>WebOS, I feel, is better in every way than the iPhone, and the network on Sprint is great.
What he heck are you smoking? WebOS is clunky, unfinished, missing a lot of features, very tasking on CPU since everything’s interpreted and drains the battery. Want me to go on?
As for Sprint.. lol! You serious? Sprint’s network is the absolute crap. Dropped calls all no service all over.
After using WebOS, my sister’s Ipod Touch is just way too inferior to use.
You would think multitasking is not really anything, but you will never give it up once you have it.
Clunky? Not really. Things run smoothly on my Pre.
Of course it needs work, but it’s surprising how handy WebOS really is.
To me, the Palm Pre is a great product which can only get better with updates that are soon to come. I mean, it’s only in 1.0 OS and it’s doing spectacular.
I don’t believe what analysts say until I get some actual numbers from Sprint / Palm.
IF their sales have been dropping, I think it’s safe to say that Palm could have done a better job advertising.
Sprint’s advertisements that featured their “Now” network and the new Palm Pre showed more features on the phone than did Palm commercials.
Palm Commercials use wacky metaphors and unfortunately do not take a direct approach to showing their product like Apple does.
Sprint’s coverage is good where I live and where most people live. If not then roaming (which is free) fits right in.
If you’re not in coverage area or even for roaming, an Airrave is possible and many people have tried it out with good results.
Also, Sprint pricing is attractive.
Sprint’s gotten better with their customer service as well. It’s not the best, but the direction they have been taking has been for the better.
Anyway, I hope the best for both phones as they grow in correlation to competition.
Brian,
“As for Sprint.. lol! You serious? Sprint’s network is the absolute crap. Dropped calls all no service all over.”
Let us talk about ATT service. Everyone with ATT lost service yesterday, and it continues today. So no one could place a call or access the internet.
Now, that is what I call stellar service wouldn’t you?
Brian,
That was everyone in Hawaii, not nationwide.
That was lost service in Hawaii, not nationwide.
@MG Siegler
You are an iCrap fanboy, period.
Oh, and an ASSHOLE!!!
I was one of the last holdouts. I thought I needed a physical keyboard, so I got a E61… but the OS always seemed kinda dated compared to the iPhone.
When Palm announced the Pre, I was excited… the iPhone + keyboard!
Unfortunately the day it was launched, I played with a unit and the hardware just felt second rate. The keyboard felt mushy and cramped – even worse than my E61.
So after the 3GS was announced I got myself one and never looked back! The virtual keyboard turned out not to be an issue after all. I find that I can type as fast if not faster than I used to on the E61.
The iphone keyboard takes getting used to just like any keyboard did when texting became popular. After a week or so I was typing faster on my iphone than any previous phone.
Its a non-issue in my opinion.
I have to agree. My thumbs are just too big for my BBerry from work… But my iPod Touch’s keyboard is a joy.
I am a Mac guy. I bought the original iPhone the debut week, bought the iPhone 3G the day it was released, and bought my MacBook Pro (Late 2008) the first day also.
Now I have a MacBook Pro and a Palm Pre.
At first I too thought that the Pre’s keyboard was below average, but once I started using it more and more, I began to love it. When compared to my iPhone 3G, it kills it. I admit that the iPhone is a great media phone, but the Pre is a great organization phone. For a good 2 weeks I had both my ATT iPhone and Sprint Pre, I found myself using my Pre all the time, and couldn’t wait to just port my number over to the Pre.
In the end I have never looked back on my decision to ditch my iPhone. When I use my friends iPhones (or even mine which just is an iPod Touch now..), I can’t stand them. The 3.0 software is better than before, but Palm’s WebOS runs circles around the iPhones software.
Lastly, the Pre can only get better now with the addition of more applications in the near future!
I’m interested in what is better about the Pre than the iPhone OS, other than multitasking? Asking because I’ve read many thorough reviews of both and it seems the only thing truly better is the multitasking and notification system.
So what is it that you like so much more?
For a lot of people multitasking and the notification system are the most important parts of OS. It always cracks me up to see questions like this. Amazing 3D games are not top on my list. If my phone wants to extend itself to be something, I’d prefer it be an organizational tool, not a Nintendo DS. Multitasking and a great notification system are key for that to happen.
I didn’t bring up 3D, though it is a nice feature.
I agree Apple needs to improve the notifications and add more user-accessible multitasking, but Nick Paul Craig said when he uses his friends iPhone’s he can’t stand them–So what is it that he can’t stand? I’m sure when borrowing someone elses phone, you aren’t using notifications at all. So is it multitasking and that’s it?
Example of issues I’ve seen with the Pre:
No predictive text
No email search!
Hardware build quality
Slow and laggy (vs 3GS)
I’m actually contemplating a Pre, so when someone says “oh it’s so much better” I want to know why.
Doesn’t that guy own a mirror? Nobody his age can pull off hair like that. Looks completely ridiculous. Unrelated to the article yes…. but you can tell a dope by their appearance.
“you can tell a dope by their appearance”
Bill Gates, Albert Einstein, Salman Rushdie, and Hugh Hefner are just a few guys who look(ed) like dopes.
You’re a fucking idiot.
not to mention that this is an old photo and his hair looks much better now…
…..Why are we talking about this guys hair?
the fact that you judge someone just by his hair makes you look like an idiot. or “dope” if you like.
I see nothing to be glad or snarky about. None of us phone users benefit from the lack of credible competition to Apple.
Agree.
The pre is the first phone to be a serious alternative to the iPhone. Lets hope they survive. Otherwise we all will be stuck in 1984 with the same 3.5″ screen at 320×480. Diversity is good.
Android is almost there. Blame the hardware people for relying on chipsets that are 3 years old. At least Palm matched the hardware.
Also, they’ll do a lot better once they drop the boat anchor that is Sprint. Verizon customers currently get to choose between a Blackberry (spectacular email, mediocre everything else) or a junk feature phone. The Pre will be an easy choice for them.
JUNE 29 was a month ago (in a week). JULY 29 is in a week
MacNamee said “Not one of those people will still be using an iPhone a month later.” That would be today.
Marketing FAIL.
Googls “MyTouch” coming out August 5th is not gonna help things. Googls search with “MyLocation” is another threat. Googl knows the power of personalization location based branding. Palm needs a startegic niche internet/mobile web presence offering or become the friendster of mobile. a good product few use.
The myTouch hardware was outdated before it even shipped. T-Mobile still doesn’t have 3G in most cities.
People who think Pre can even remotely challenge apple are suffering from inferior opinionitus. Seriously people?! “oooh..webOS” yah yah..clunky javascript vs. robust objective-c..get over it.
I hope our test unit arrives soon. I can’t wait to try this phone out.
LOL. It wouldn’t matter. If it doesn’t have an Apple logo on it, you guys will say it sucks hard.
I Know I am with you George
it might suck soft. hard to know without trying it.
not at all. I think the pre is the second best phone on the market today.
I don’t know if second-best really applies when the phones are quite different. It may come to preference for multitasking and PIM functionality, or multimedia, apps and games. Which is the better connected device, which is better for when you’re stuck at the airport? Too different to call one better.
That said, I’d be interested to get your opinion once that mythical review unit arrives.
If TC were the parents, one would think the Pre is the second favorite son, sibling to the favored first-born iPhone. But every TC Pre-related article I read paints the Pre as the deformed unwanted bastard. Poor poor Pre. Can no one love you while under the shadow of your brother?
Very true, and it is probably the best platform to develop for after the iPhone.
The SDK is well designed, just like the iPhone SDK and does not have legacy issues like BB or Symbian.
It is hard to build business with people whose only argument is either “I don’t want Apple” or “Everybody else has iPhone”.
For god’s sake, have you looked at iPhone? It is very intuitive. It is slick. It is just the best.
MG, when you have a few minutes, you should watch this video interview: http://video.al...E9-719F377E4E9C
There is a *lot* more debt to the palm story then the McNamee quote (taken out of context). I think that this story would be a lot more interesting if it was focusing on the big picture, specially given that a lot of the people using the pre seem to be happy with it!
How exactly do you take that quote out of context? It has all the context you need right in it. Unless you’re saying Bloomberg misquoted him.
Watch the video. They spend a few minutes in it talking about this quote. Context being that Palm is not really going after iphone users.
Context being that months later they realized that the March quote was setting themselves up to fail, so they switched targets.
exactly.
You got the last part right, I’m yet to see anybody who owns a Pre not like it. People who spent 5 minutes with the phone might complain about the keyboard but you get used to it after the first day. I’m not a programmer and I don’t care what software the Pre uses (iPhone uses objective C, so what?), but the OS is great… the phone is very responsive and it just works.
Yeah I’m sure Palm will be able to find lots of customers who go… “Oh the keyboard feels like crap… but I’ll go ahead and buy one and maybe I’ll like it later!”
yeah… like the iPhone buyers who hate typing on the touch screen but get used to it after a week of using it (@jason). As for me, I do like the keyboard, it’s way better and faster than typing on the iPhone.
Context? How about Palm Legal being forced to issue a retraction after McNamee’s “out of context” quote?
http://investor...193125-09-48035
Trying to justify that stupid quote now is just sad.
wow. that’s just. amazing.
seriously. will work well in the anniversary post.
well spotted Se7en.
i guess every interview with a company’s top dogs has to come with at least 10 Caveats, Corrections & Clarifications.
So basically, they can spew bullshit figures, make outrageous claims (like they invented the question mark) and just follow it with a bunch of “fine print”.
The claim in this post is taken care of quite nicely:
8. The statement in the second paragraph of the article that “not one” person who bought an Apple, Inc. iPhone on the first shipment date “will still be using an iPhone a month” after the two-year anniversary of that day is an exaggerated prediction of consumer behavior pattern and is withdrawn.
I have a feeling that when the GPS version comes out that allows you to put the Pre on ATT/T-mobile it might actually make a dent into the iPhone’s market.
GSM maybe…
Do you have any evidence that iGR is reliable? If no Apple store reports declining sales but at the same time ‘frequently selling out’ is less common then the only possible reason is increased inventory. Did they ask if the store was receiving more units? And why would they give hard counts for Pre sales and not iPhone?
And according to this data 25% of iPhones are sold to iPhone-2 users, 25% to iPhone-1 users and 50% unknown… of which at least some must be existing AT&T customers. The Pre sales are almost entirely “a mixture” of new Sprint customers. Does a mixture mean 50%-50%? If so the Pre is actually more likely to be sold to a new Sprint customer than an iPhone to a new AT&T customer. That seems like a good thing for Sprint.
But if you take into consideration the differences in scale of their sold units, its not good news for palm at all. If I correctly extrapolated the numbers from that graph, Palm currently has sold 320,000 Pre’s in 6 weeks with sales slowing down to 20,000 per week. If they sustain that rate, they will sell their 1 millionth Pre in week 40, or 9 months from the release date. If Palm truly does have a 50% conversion rate then they signed up 500,000 new customers.
However, Judging from Apple’s current earnings report and previous quarters as guidance, they will sell around 15 MILLION iPhones in that same time frame. Even if their conversion rate is 25%, they will still gain 3.75 million new customers.
We wont know the true figures until Palm releases its own numbers. But the longer we go without news the worse the news probably is. If these statistics are accurate then that L graph is terrible news for Palm, and for Palm users hoping to lure developers to jump on their bandwagon.
You know that one really should compare apples to apples. Everyone is extolling that the iPhone sold a million or more units the first weekend, while the Pre only sold a 150K or so.
Unfortunately, those are world wide numbers for the iPhone and US numbers for the Pre.
“This chart comes after they completed a series of checks last week across 50 Sprint stores nationwide in top markets.
…40 percent of the stores willing to discuss volumes said they had sold less than 10 units this week (compared to 30 percent last week).”
Forty percent of 50 stores equals a total of 20 freakin’ stores. You call that a channel check? And where exactly are these stores? Cities, towns, backwoods?
Where is the raw data? This sounds like total crap. How the hell can you draw any significant conclusions based on 20 stores out of 1,200? Not to mention, the thousands upon thousands of other distribution points like Best Buy, Walmart, and Radio Shack.
Ok, so they’ve sold about 300,000 units and sales have leveled off at about 25,000 units per week.
It’s reasonable to assume that demand will kick up a little as back-to-school season begins. Then Christmas and probably a small price cut.
If I had to bet money, they’ll have 1 million units in use by January of next year.
Is the Pre a failure if it only has 1 million units in the marketplace by that point? If the answer is yes, Palm needs to immediately cut the price and try to figure out a back-to-school gimmick to put them in the hands of young people.
Everyone has an iPhone, but teens like to be different and the Pre could be that hipper alternative.
It’s still not as big of a bomb as the Insight is it?
I am surprised that all those new iPhones suckling BW from ATT didn’t crush its network.
Can you imagine Apple’s iPhone sales if it was available on Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile as well?
well, if you live in Hawaii, it did crush the network, and most ATT customers are on their second day of NO/intermittent service.
Must be great being an ATT customer.
Perhaps it is not so good for ATT customers, but it sure looks good for APPLE. They must have sold a lot of phones to make that kind of impact on service.
This is JNK’s wireless consultant group iGR…they call him Steve:
“Our Global Telecommunications Consultant delivers customized, high-impact intelligence on the global telecom markets to help clients make informed decisions. Using a combination of primary research and in-depth competitive analysis, Steve is able to forecast worldwide market trends, and analyze business strategies, emerging technologies, vendors, and pivotal events influencing the global telecom markets.”
Steve calls 50 stores and see who answers. Most don’t.
http://www.jnksecurities.com/
I think their marketing is way off. Those commercials are an embarrassment of MS/Seinfeld proportions. Its cheaper than an iPhone, can multi task, synergy… why I haven’t seen that in any commercials? I just saw one that showed off the calendar. THE CALENDAR! That’s the least interesting thing it can do.
“Our Consultant [Steve] has been an independent analyst for over seven years, during which time he has provided analysis and consulting services related to the global telecom markets to banks, pension funds, asset managers and hedge funds in the United States, Europe, Asia and South Africa. He [Steve] has also undertaken strategic consulting projects for leading global telecom companies including Vodafone, Nokia, Qualcomm, Intel, Verizon and Britsh Telecom.”
In other words, who is paying him for this crap? Hint: It ain’t Sprint. They know what they’re selling.
So WHO is paying Steve aka iGR? Hint: It ain’t Sprint.
“Our Consultant [Steve] has been an independent analyst for over seven years, during which time he has provided analysis and consulting services related to the global telecom markets to banks, pension funds, asset managers and hedge funds in the United States, Europe, Asia and South Africa. He [Steve] has also undertaken strategic consulting projects for leading global telecom companies including Vodafone, Nokia, Qualcomm, Intel, Verizon and Britsh Telecom.”
iGR is actually iGR (formerly iGillottResearch, named after its founder, Iain Gillott). I’m pretty sure they get funding from JNK securities to spit out this drivel. The company is based out of Texas, has two “consultants” working for them, and puts out awesome reports like “9% of people have sent a text message to end a relationship” and “42% of people use their phones in the bathroom”, based on random surveys they send out (visit http://www.igr-inc.com to see these wonderful reports). Yes, these are the types of analyst reports that really help to drive stock ratings.
This same Iain Gillott is mentioned in this 2007 ComputerWorld article, as follows:
“It took Iain Gillott 47 hours to activate his iPhone after waiting in the Texas heat Friday afternoon to buy one.
He has been an AT&T Inc./Cingular Wireless customer for 12 years, so he never dreamed there would be any trouble setting up service.”
Nice analysis there, champ — 14 years as an AT&T customer nonetheless. Let me go start my own blog so I can get mentioned in an article too, entitled “42.7 percent of all cell phone statistics are made up on the spot.”
TechCrunch, I expected better from you.
The Pre is a hit you monkeys! What product hits 1M in sales in the first year?
The loser here is RIM….every BBerry user cant wait to chuck his BBerry their legacy software once v2 of Pre comes out
I would expect a company with so many years of experience, one who said that the PC guys will not just walk in a figure out the phone market, would sell far more than that. Considering 4 months ago Palm seemed to think that the owners of the original Iphone would have Pres by the 29 of July. Well there are far more than a million original Iphone customers. Keep in mind they already have a large customer base.
Why am I not surprised?
Palm has ALWAYS suffered from bad advertising, and marketing. Before the iPhone came out, Palm already had “smart-phones” that could make phone calls, access the internet, take pictures, (copy & paste), and even play music. It also had tons of apps. Sure, it didn’t sync with iTunes, and didn’t hold as much music per se, but it still existed. Why was the iPhone such a big deal?
Well, for one, it was better than the Palm smart-phones. But that’s NO excuse for the poor marketing that allowed the iPhone to completely overtake it.
Now, Palm has an opportunity to compete with the iPhone. I’m not saying Palm is better. I’ve owned Palm products in the past, and they’ve driven me insane, but I haven’t owned an iPhone yet. Palm HAS to go after the iPhone a little more obviously. The advertisements for it have not exactly made me want to purchase one. The iPhone advertised the features of the phone; perhaps Palm should do the same.
Palm should take a Windows-like approach to advertising the Pre in a way that competes with Apple. Maybe I’m being too harsh, but having watched Palm decline over the past decade, I don’t think I’m too far off.
You realize that Sprint won several ad awards with the Palm pre ads?
Keep it friendly guys – I think you can tell a dope by the way the behave. We are all friends here… right??? lol. Keep it friendly and healthy guys!
Well established that *Crunch network is in the pocket of Apple or Google. That said…
Realize that Palm is NOT betting on the Pre. It is betting on the WebOs. The WebOS will appear in Palm Pre (Sprint), Palm Pre (GSM/O2/etc..), and Palm will license the WebOS in other phones.
So its not Palm vs iPhone. It is Palm WebOS vs Apple (closed) iPhone platform.
As for the silly waiting comparisons, that is like saying “oooh that club has a line — it MUST be good.” No, that means Palm has gotten its supply chain management right on. Why force a customer to wait? Also Palm was sold through sprint AND best buy (with best buy waiving the rebate and giving it on the spot). iPhone doesn’t quite have that advantage or reach — so it doesn’t have such a broad distribution.
So before you become a Steve Jobs stooge, start looking at the prospects of WebOS more than the Pre.
For me personally I am happy with the Palm/Pre. I can do crazy things like 2-3 things at a time. And more importantly with Sprint I get included in my $99/mo unlimited voice, free navigation, free TV, unlimited text (including picture SMS). I also get a 25% discount on accessories (new customer) and a referral bonus of $25 for joining Sprint. So if you truly need 50,000 apps (of which TechCrunch has said only 110 apps are actually used) and want to pay over $1500 more for the life of the contract, the iPhone IS for you.
Oh forgot to add, I LOVE LOVE LOVE the induction charging. No cables, just rest the Pre on the charger and it is held by magnets. They really nailed it with this one. When the phone is on the induction charger, it goes into speaker phone mode if you answer a call and then flips to the ear piece when you pick it up (uh…yes it is still a phone). No plugging in crap.
$70 for a charger…I would sure hope it’s fantastic!
Its $45 and comes with charger and replacement backing (ie you have an extra back for your Palm Pre). And yes it IS that great.
I agree with most of what you said (Sprint is definitely cheaper), but that app store part is just wrong. There may be only 150 apps, but it’s a different set of 150 for each person.
Anyone dismissing the power of the app store just has to look at why people use Windows. It’s because of the available software, and that’s it. 99% of that software is total garbage, but even that 1% is still a huge number because the total number is so big.
If Apple continues to lead here and Palm can’t get devs signed up (Blackberry ain’t doing so hot in comparison), then they’ll never catch Apple.
With his long locks, McNamee appears to be more and more of a Bono wannabe now. Whenever an investor’s eyes are off the ball, well, there goes his investments.
The problem for PALM is that they can have a great product with the Pre, even sell it quite well, and not last as a company without Pre (and a steady supply of subsequent WebOS products) being a resounding success.
PALM has been VERY vague on gross margin and operating expenses, but with some reasonable – even aggressive – estimates, I think PALM absolutely MUST sell almost 1 million units per quarter just to break even. Less aggressive estimates would require north of 1 million units.
Then there is the question of making a profit and justifying its current valuation . . .
Having watched Steve Jobs being called “Huckster hall of famer” and for good reason, I think the ripping into McNamee is overdone. MG, how long have you been covering this industry?
20k or 30k sales a week for the Pre means a death watch has begun. At best that is 2 million units per year. whereas the 3GS may well average 2 million a month. the Pre is a giant flop. dump your Palm stock today before its mini-bubble bursts in a matter of weeks.
I love the Palm Pre and it’s ability to multi-task is awesome with it’s powerful WebOS platform. The Iphone 3GS is a wonderful phone too, but I think that it is mainly a phone for multimedia purposes vs. the Palm Pre which is for everyday life. That is why I purchase the Palm Pre because it fits for my everyday life. Yes it does’nt have as many APPS as Iphone’s 50k APPS store. But just wait because Palm had just release their SDK for developers to start making tons of apps for the Palm Pre. I say give it just 2-4 months then their sales will be even more promising. I don’t believe this graph what these people are talking about because we need to see the Sprint/Palm real sales of what they did. Not some speculation graph. PALM is Back.
I’m in Hawaii. Not everyone with AT&T and an iPhone was down or is down. Only certain people so don’t say all. It’s not like carriers have never had problems before.
As for the Palm SDK, people that don’t know how to write applications have no idea how great the iPhone SDK is. It’s so much better than the Palm SDK right now.
Someone wake my when they make a phone that has excellent voice, call, ect. quality and a well interfaced email program. All the other crap is for suckers.
yeah, Roger was stupid, he thought iPhone users are intelligent enough to try a phone out before making decisions or mouthing off. Which obviously is false, apple fanboys don’t really think.