2010: Year of the Palm?
by John Paczkowski
Posted on November 11, 2009 at 7:49 AM PT
The Pixi, the Palm Pre’s diminutive smart-phone sibling, arrives at market a few days from now (Nov. 15), and despite some potential pricing confusion with the Pre, analysts expect it to be another catalyst for the company’s comeback. In a note to clients today, Bank of America/Merrill Lynch (BAC) analyst Vivek Arya said Palm (PALM) is well-poised for growth in 2010.
“Despite increasing smartphone competition, Palm can maintain differentiation and remains well-positioned to launch its products with multiple new Tier-1 carriers in early 2010 by which time it should have a robust apps catalog,” Arya wrote. “While we expect the stock to remain volatile, the recent sell-off creates an interesting buying opportunity, in our opinion, for a company with an attractive platform, selling into a high-growth market, and at a compelling valuation.”
Interestingly, Arya notes that Palm’s webOS application ecosystem, initially something of a disappointment, is growing a bit more rapidly these days with between 50 and 100 apps being added to Palm’s App Catalog each week. He expects growth to continue with the debut of a new feature enabling customers to download apps simply by clicking on a URL. Arya believes this will dramatically improve discovery of apps and attract more attention from developers. His conclusion: With a more robust App Catalog and two attractive handsets, Palm is well-positioned to launch its webOS line with multiple new Tier-1 carriers like Verizon (VZ) in early 2010.
Comments
Again this is the best-case scenario for the Pre, and again, the success is just around the corner.
The Pre has way too many flaws: no native apps, very slow software, 2 lousy keyboards and no good one, terrible battery life.
The hilarious part of the new Palm is how they copied so much Apple, yet at the end of the day, they bet on mechanical keyboards and rode them all the way into oblivion.
Posted by Fred Hamranhansenhansen at November 11th, 2009 at 8:31 pmBTW, 2010 has already been chosen as the Year of Android for the 4th year in a row. They are hoping to get up to 2% market share this year and become the most popular Linux ever.
Posted by Fred Hamranhansenhansen at November 11th, 2009 at 8:33 pm