|
While other major technology vendors may be approaching this week’s Consumer Electronics Show as an opportunity to show off their latest gadgets, the stakes are far higher for Palm.
Industry observers say it’s nothing less than do or die time for the pioneering mobile device maker, which is expected at CES to show off the new mobile platform on which its future may depend.
“Palm is now at a critical crossroads in its existence. It’s not yet clear whether it can survive, let alone regain its former luster,” Jack Gold, principal analyst at J. Gold Associates, told InternetNews.com. “It has fallen well behind the market with its geriatric Palm OS-driven systems and needs a good kick in the phone to get market share back.”
Palm (NASDAQ: PALM) is slated to deliver a major presentation on the first day of CES, being held Thursday through Sunday in Las Vegas. While the company declined to reveal any information about its contents to InternetNews.com, it’s a likely introduction for one of the company’s key launches planned for this year: A new Linux-based mobile OS, reportedly called Nova.
Few details have been revealed about the new platform, which has been in development for two years, and which industry watchers say Palm needs to nail if it’s going to regain market share.
A success from the new OS couldn’t come at a more urgent time. While the struggling player received a much-needed $100 million infusion from Elevation Partners last month, it has been steadily losing traction to newcomers such as Apple’s iPhone and leaders like the BlackBerry.
According to research firm comScore, Palm currently holds 15.5 percent of the U.S. smartphone market, while Research in Motion’s (RIM) BlackBerry portfolio leads with 38.7 percent. Apple’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone, despite being on the market only about 18 months, has grabbed a 15.8 percent share of the space.
Palm hasn’t been idle during that time, however. The company experienced 47 percent growth from September 2007 to September 2008. In 2008, Palm debuted an unlocked Centro, new Google map applications, and two high-end smartphones, the Treo 800W and Treo Pro.
Yet, according to comScore, it is still underperforming in the smartphone category as a whole, given that the market grew 106 percent in the 12-month period ending in September.
The new product launches also did little to help Palm’s financial outlook. While it reported better-than-expected revenues of $366.9 million in the third quarter — above analysts’ estimates of $329.9 million — it also reported a net loss of $41.9 million.
Yet there’s also thought to be a lot of room to grow for vendors of smartphones, which currently represent only a sliver of the overall phone market. At present, 1.4 percent of all U.S. mobile phone subscribers have a Palm device, while 3.4 percent use a BlackBerry, 1.2 percent are iPhone users and 3 percent have a Windows device, according to comScore.
Palm hasn’t released any official details on new devices for 2009, but several tech bloggers are reporting rumors that one new handset will offer a sliding QWERTY keyboard hidden under a touch-sensitive display.
Gadget site CrunchGear, citing a trusted source, reported earlier this week that the device will be “iPhone-like.”
But analysts believe it will take much more than merely aping Apple’s design aesthetic for Palm to regain its footing.
“This really is Palm’s last chance to come out with a compelling, competitive platform,” Gold said. “That’s sad for a company that virtually invented the smartphone, but it is the reality of the current market which has seen some highly compelling platforms.”
This article was first published on InternetNews.com. To read the full article, click here.
Huawei’s AI Update: Things Are Moving Faster Than We Think
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
December 04, 2020
Keeping Machine Learning Algorithms Honest in the ‘Ethics-First’ Era
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Guest Author,
November 18, 2020
Key Trends in Chatbots and RPA
FEATURE | By Guest Author,
November 10, 2020
FEATURE | By Samuel Greengard,
November 05, 2020
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Guest Author,
November 02, 2020
How Intel’s Work With Autonomous Cars Could Redefine General Purpose AI
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
October 29, 2020
Dell Technologies World: Weaving Together Human And Machine Interaction For AI And Robotics
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
October 23, 2020
The Super Moderator, or How IBM Project Debater Could Save Social Media
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
October 16, 2020
FEATURE | By Cynthia Harvey,
October 07, 2020
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Guest Author,
October 05, 2020
CIOs Discuss the Promise of AI and Data Science
FEATURE | By Guest Author,
September 25, 2020
Microsoft Is Building An AI Product That Could Predict The Future
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
September 25, 2020
Top 10 Machine Learning Companies 2020
FEATURE | By Cynthia Harvey,
September 22, 2020
NVIDIA and ARM: Massively Changing The AI Landscape
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
September 18, 2020
Continuous Intelligence: Expert Discussion [Video and Podcast]
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By James Maguire,
September 14, 2020
Artificial Intelligence: Governance and Ethics [Video]
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By James Maguire,
September 13, 2020
IBM Watson At The US Open: Showcasing The Power Of A Mature Enterprise-Class AI
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
September 11, 2020
Artificial Intelligence: Perception vs. Reality
FEATURE | By James Maguire,
September 09, 2020
Anticipating The Coming Wave Of AI Enhanced PCs
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
September 05, 2020
The Critical Nature Of IBM’s NLP (Natural Language Processing) Effort
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
August 14, 2020
Datamation is the leading industry resource for B2B data professionals and technology buyers. Datamation's focus is on providing insight into the latest trends and innovation in AI, data security, big data, and more, along with in-depth product recommendations and comparisons. More than 1.7M users gain insight and guidance from Datamation every year.
Advertise with TechnologyAdvice on Datamation and our other data and technology-focused platforms.
Advertise with Us
Property of TechnologyAdvice.
© 2025 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved
Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this
site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives
compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products
appear on this site including, for example, the order in which
they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies
or all types of products available in the marketplace.