2/16/2009  www.mountainviewcellphones.com

Palm released some great updates today on the anticipated Palm PRE.  Some cool video of what it can do.  The two core elements are the further development of Mojo SDK (software development kit) for WebOS and the showing of the UMTS version in Europe.

Apple changed the game…and Palm will give them a race for the money.  This is seriously an epic business story of Apple vs. Apple.  The teacher now faced with his former apprentice for mastery of the mobile smartphone market.  As you may know, Apple’s core team that brought us the IPHONE moved to Palm to develop the PRE and WebOS.  At best, I expect parity results to Apple Iphone version 1 in terms of sell thru in USA and this will solidify Palm’s future viability.  At worst, the old master will win handily and Palm will be vanquished and bankrupt.

Apple changed the game in two major ways.

1.   Focusing on applications and application platforms.  Namely, the PC wars on mobile phones.

2.  Creating a great way to use the platform via innovative hardware.

3.  Creating volume to attract developers to the platform.

Palm appears to be doing the exact same thing; however, it has an advantage of a developer group that worked on the Internet in oodles.  This base is not as accustomed to mobile application development but WebOS appears to be bridging this gap.

If you look at the overview of WebOS, this architecture is trying to make it as smooth a transition as possible to existing web development and putting that knowledge to work on mobile phones.  Outside of what is new in terms of interacting with the hardware, much of the coding of content appears just like web development.

Who needs “Applephiles” if you can coopt the entire web development infrastructure for your device?  The PRE is a great platform for many aspiring developers/designers and young companies to make a name for themselves in virgin turf with commonly taught skill sets throughout the world.

If the launch of the PRE is successful, within 6 months, I predict I can hire on Elance a developer to build me an app for the PRE for $10-20/hr. in India.  Same as on the IPhone today.

O’Reilly has their book ready for developers when Mojo SDK is released.  This is a good primer to see if you want to purchase the whole thing and move forward.

The PRE hardware is also great.   The synch software of combining several applications to work seamlessly (email and calendaring in particular and nofitications) and the physical keyboard with a full gesture screen are true innovations.

I wish Sprint would work faster to get this done quickly.  It’s remarkably the Phoenix like resurrection of Sprint if this goes well.  For history, Sprint took preeminence in the smartphone arena with the Palm 650 a while back.  Lost the lead and lost a lot of time in the merger with Nextel.  Palm flopped around for years without something majorly new.

Lastly, the Global launch of the PRE will again be different than Apple.  Apple has been a relative yawn globally.  The PRE may win out here and if it does, the volume Globally and locally can make it once again, the developers choice for mobile apps.

Palm, Sprint, Apple…a drama of epic porportions.  Blackberry is still behind the curve in this endeavor of putting “apps first” before the phone.  With Steve Jobs’ health in not so good condition, can the master maintain dominance as the icon of America or will the PRE have the limelight for 2 years?

Permalink