Pre’s strength lies in Web’s future, not Palm’s heritage
Tuesday, January 27th, 2009
By Ross Rubin, Executive Director, NPD Connected Intelligence
CES 2009 may have been smaller than the 2008 edition, but this time the cell phone that stole the show was actually launched there. Before the rollout of Palm’s new handset (pre-Pre), CEO Ed Colligan talked about the company’s mobile heritage and that it was poised for success, in part, because all it is focused on is mobile. Indeed, Palm doesn’t make components like Samsung. It doesn’t make PCs like Apple. And it doesn’t make set-top boxes like Motorola.
While one could debate whether other businesses contribute to success in cell phones, though, having a broader portfolio is certainly correlated to sales leadership in the U.S. Samsung, LG, and Motorola, the three most popular domestic handset brands by far, according to NPD’s Mobile Phone Track, all play in industries other than mobile. In fact, if you add up many of the larger companies focused solely on mobile, a group that includes Nokia, RIM, Sony Ericsson, Palm, and HTC, they cumulatively accounted for little more than a fifth of all handset sales for the first 11 months of 2008.
The area where the Pre really breaks new ground is its webOS operating. Even here, there’s nothing inherently mobile about the Web — many Web sites remain handset-hostile — but Palm’s Synergy architecture weaves content from online properties increasingly exposing their information into its fluid flow of operation. Such integration would surely benefit a wide range of information and entertainment products, but has the most near-term potential in the one device that’s rarely far from the consumer or the Internet.
Tags: Mobile Phone Track, Palm, Pre, Synergy, WebOS
Wireless | Ross Rubin, Executive Director, NPD Connected Intelligence | 
January 27, 2009 1:21 pm
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