Palm’s recent launch with Verizon Wireless has failed to generate any momentum for the company, putting the company’s long-term prospects into question.
So, what can Palm (NSDQ: PALM) do? Given that its new webOS is a worthy contender and stacks up nicely against the iPhone, Android and others, it must have options. One solution could include identifying a buyer or partner for the company. Right now, it’s largely a niche player, and should be looking for a company with deep pockets, strong relationships with developers and a good distribution network.
That shouldn’t be so hard given that so many companies are looking to get a piece of the smartphone action. In fact, it’s no wonder something hasn’t happened already.
There’s three potential suitors that immediately jump to mind, and likely there’s others, too. Nokia (NYSE: NOK) and Dell have long been rumored to be potential buy-out candidates. Those are still attractive options. A third one could be HP, which despite its line of iPaq smartphones running the Windows Mobile, has been completely overshadowed.
In particular, Nokia remains a strong prospect for buying Palm, or licensing its software. At Mobile World Congress last week, it announced it was merging its Maemo operating system with Intel’s Moblin operating system to create MeeGo. Both operating systems are based on Linux, like Palm’s. In doing so, both Nokia and Intel (NSDQ: INTC) will just fall further behind, and confuse the market further. The first release of MeeGo is expected in the second quarter of this year with devices launching later in the year. In contrast, Palm’s webOS is already a fully baked product with a small, but growing ecosystem. And, while Palm has accumulated debt while trying to get off the ground, together Nokia and Intel should be able to cover it.
Another candidate is HP, which continues to say that it is serious about smartphones, even though handset sales have fallen about 80 percent over the last five years, reports the NYTimes.
You are still keeping these Palm-Nokia rumors alive!! OMG
Nokia already has one good Linux platform, Maemo, and good product using it, N900. With these they are paving the way for MeeGo. Qt is coming to Maemo in a few weeks. Then Maemo and and Meego are compatible. From app developer’s POW N900 is then a MeeGo phone.
If you are confused then it seems that you haven’t studied the topic enough. For many people these things are making sense and the future seems really REALLY promising.
mostlyaboutmobile is exactly right – Nokia buying Palm and using WebOS essentially unmodified makes no sense at all. MeeGo development (as with Maemo 6 and Moblin) is centered on the mature and highly-regarded QT (“cute”) toolkit, which is also the new toolkit for Symbian (remember Symbian, Nokia’s market-leading phone OS?).
With this strategy, a developer can write one app and distribute for both Symbian and MeeGo (and Windows, Mac OS/X, and Linux), targeting more devices than iPhone and Android put together. How would WebOS and its HTML / CSS / JavaScript developer toolkit fit into this strategy? In short, not at all.
While Nokia could conceivably buy Palm for its patent portfolio, that would spell the death of WebOS. And though I’m a long-time N770, N800 and N900 user, I hope not. I still have many fond memories of Palm.
Tricia
You are major in journalism – stay there…..
(And stay away from technology you do not understand).
Just one question:
How many HW platform (and processors), WEB-OS is optimized for ?
Regards
Great points all around. Although I don’t think these decisions will come down to what makes sense technology-wise, rather what makes sense for business. Nokia needs to come up with a smartphone solution in the near-term, So, what does everyone think about HP or Dell?
I agree Nokia would likely not buy Palm but I don’t agree on the afore mentioned reasons. Nokia may already have a variety of OS’s but it’s not because their OS’s are great. It’s because Nokia apears to be having trouble deciding how to deal with the iPhone and with Android. Symbian is only market leading in numbers not in features and public interest. And those numbers are shrinking all of the time as a result.
That said Nokia is already too fragmented in OS terms. Adding another to the mix wouldn’t help, and there’s too much momentum on their current solutions in the company. And every time I hear the QT framework pushed as a way to write for Windows, Mac OS/X, and Nokia phones I have to laugh. It’s a pipe dream and that’s all it is. I’ve seen one Mac application that was written in QT that was published for Windows and Mac both and the trade offs necessary were so invasive that the company ended up rewriting the Mac one from scratch because it was so bad. I’m going to somehow write an application that works on Windows, Mac, AND Nokia phones and it’s going to be good enough people want to use it? Right…
I think either HP or Dell could certainly purchase from and benefit from Palm. But I’d be worried to see what they do to the company culture. WebOS is the only ‘exciting’ phone OS out there right now besides Apple’s. And that’s in large part to their similar cultural focus on software AND hardware. Dell and HP are not used to doing that and I’d hate to see what they’d do to that strength.
Hi! Nice. So you might want to fix a few unintended errors. In the below, you should make it “it’s a wonder,” not “no wonder,” which has the opposite meaning, and both “there’s” should be “there’re,” because naturally you mean “there are three/others” and not “there is three/others.”
“…In fact, it’s no wonder something hasn’t happened already.
There’s three potential suitors that immediately jump to mind, and likely there’s others, too….”
First thing that came to my mind was RIM. Just sayin’.
Jamie, you may be right that QT apps won’t be acceptable to the Mac’s more finicky users. That will leave us QT developers contending for only 96% of the desktop market and 47% of the smartphone market – obviously a far cry from Apple’s 4% of the desktop and 24% of the smartphone market.
By the way, 8 million *more* Symbian phones were sold in 2009 than in 2008 – an odd definition of “shrinking all the time”!
“I’ve seen **one** Mac application that was written in QT that was published for Windows and Mac[...]”
May be your developers were not talented enough or willing to learn how to use Qt. Bashing Qt over one unsuccessful application seems farfetched.
I know that Adobe use Qt a lot. So, Mac support should not be that bad… http://qt.nokia.com/qt-in-use/story/app/adobe-photoshop-album
Etienne, I’ll admit my experience with QT is limited. My experience with attempts at multi platform development schemes is more so. And I’ve yet to see one that has been used to create high quality software for multiple OS’s at the same time. No OS is the same and thus it’s users expect buttons, and widgets in certain places. When they aren’t there it’s disruptive and confusing to users. I’m not reacting to (or bashing) QT so much as I’m reacting to the pie in the sky idea that I can have one code base for multiple OSs (desktop and mobile ones no less) and it’s somehow to going to produce easily usable, and intelligent results for each OS.
And using Adobe’s recent development efforts as an example of quality isn’t the greatest bet. Adobe’s professional apps (Lightroom and a few others not withstanding) on both Windows and Mac have gotten progressively less stable over the last 3 releases. And more importantly the interface elements have numerous documented bugs (as a result of Adobe attempting to combine the Windows and Mac interface code). See here:
http://adobegripes.tumblr.com/
Just the simple fact that the window close/maximize widgets are the opposite side of adobe apps is a source consistent frustration for me. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve quickly moved to close a document only to then remember, oh yea, in this 1 app on my Mac it’s on the other side, just for fun you know. :) But it’s not just Mac guys annoyed by the Adobe changes it’s resulted in interface issues for Windows people too especially in Adobe Fireworks where the stability, ui, and typography issues are glaring.
So that’s my long winded explanation. I do understand that some may disagree. And “good enough” is good enough for some people. I probably just spend way too much time on my computer, and I’ve seen way too many multi platform coding attempts result in sub par applications. We remember the dream of Java right? :)
I’ll note that one area where I think you can build an application that works equally well (or close to it) on multiple OS’s is on the web. People don’t expect the same kinds of interface consistency there. And as long as the interface you build is smart and consistent within itself you can build a great app.
And as for Nokia, I’ll admit they’ve got some serious market share right now. But resting on that isn’t going to get them anywhere, not that I think they are. I just think they need to choose an OS and stick to it. Maemo shows the most promise and is certainly the most exciting but it’s not ready for normal people yet according to the reviews I’ve seen.
I think maybe I’m just in a bad mood the last few days. So I’m just going to shut up now.