Palm seems to have satiated pent-up early demand for its new Pre smartphone, constrained supplies be damned. In a pair of investor notes issued today, analysts at Pali Research and JP Morgan say that sales of the Pre have tapered off to a point where supply and demand are roughly in parity.
It took Apple and AT&T 74 days to sell the first million iPhones back in 2007. This year it took just three. No wonder AT&T is crowing about first-day sales. In an all-hands memo to employees this week, the carrier, which sold “hundreds of thousands” of iPhones during its pre-order process, said first-day sales of the 3GS were off the charts. The memo, after the jump.
Here’s an interesting metric: Apple’s Web site last month drew more than 55.7 million unique visitors, more than the site of any other computer hardware manufacturer, according to a report released this week by Nielsen Online. The number of visitors was more than double that of Hewlett-Packard, which drew 21.9 million people, and triple Dell’s, which drew 16.8 million.
According to some lines of code secreted away within webOS, Palm has at least one more handset in the pipeline–the so-called Eos (codename: Pixie). And while no one seems to know when it will arrive at market, there’s speculation today that we’ll see it by November, right in time for the winter holidays.
First-quarter spending on information technology goods and services was worse than Forrester Research predicted at the beginning of the year. But it will grow no worse. We’ve hit bottom. Finally. According to Forrester, anyway.
During its post-earnings conference call last Thursday, Palm refused to say how many Pre handsets have been sold to date. Or how many it believes it will sell in the first quarter of production. The company would say only, in the words of CEO Jon Rubinstein, that “sales have been strong and growing.” So until Palm provides specific Pre sales figures, we have only the estimates of analysts with which to gauge the device’s impact on Palm’s moribund smartphone franchise. And the latest estimates, from Edward Snyder at Charter Equity Research, suggest that the impact is great.
The consumer electronics wizards at Dell who brought us the now defunct DJ Ditty MP3 player and the Axim handheld are hard at work on another gadget, a mobile Internet device.
Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi has a few ideas about what Dell should do with the nearly $11 billion in cash reserves it’s sitting on and they don’t include buying Palm. Sacconaghi believes that Dell isn’t interested in a “transformational” acquisition, though its interest in the handset market might suggest otherwise. Rather, the company is mulling the acquisition of small- to medium-sized enterprise-related companies.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs has officially returned to work after a six-month medical leave. “Steve Jobs is back to work,” Apple spokesman Steve Dowling told Digital Daily, confirming what many in Silicon Valley began to suspect last week after Jobs popped up in a company press release.
The iPhone 3GS has been on the market just 10 days now and already, a growing number of Apple stores around the country are running short of the device. It seems that demand for the 3GS, which topped one million units sold its first weekend at market, has exceeded even the company’s presumably aggressive targets.
Oracle was “almost” able to resolve the Justice Department’s concerns over its proposed acquisition of Sun Microsystems. Almost, but not quite. The 30-day review period for the $7.4 billion deal was set to expire midnight Friday. But instead of approving it, the DOJ extended its examination, issuing a second request for more information.
Nearly half–48 percent–of Americans would drop their mobile data service completely if they were driven to it by the souring economy. That’s the conclusion of a new study by Strategy Analytics, which found that consumers are not so taken with mobile connectivity that they’ve completely lost site of household budgetary constraints.
Palm shares are on a tear this morning, rallying on the company’s fourth-quarter financials and the promise of its new Pre handset. Palm is trading at $15.30 as I write this, up more than nine percent in reaction to the company’s claims that the Pre and Palm’s webOS are off to a strong start.
Apple put some of the vast $28 billion in cash and short-term investments it has socked away to good use this week by raising its stake in Imagination Technologies. The $5.16 million investment nearly triples Apple’s original 3.6 percent stake, giving it 9.5 percent ownership of the British chip designer whose PowerVR graphics technology figures prominently in the iPhone and iPod touch.
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper.
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
Includes “Pigs in a Polka,” “Rabbit of Seville” and, of course, “What’s Opera, Doc?”
Take the famous ballads and duets of West Side Story, insert a dozen mentions of famous social media sites like twitter and facebook, and this is what you get.
An iPod mini rebuilt with a wooden case
Star Wars meets Magnum, P.I.
Music videos recreated with new lyrics based on what’s actually happening in them. Daydream Believer and Total Eclipse of the Heart are particularly good.
In response to numerous e-mails, I have no idea what planet the giant alien creature is from. Judging from its enormous gills, I’d have to guess it’s from a watery planet. Reminder: please let me know if you plan to be in the office on Memorial Day so I can request HVAC for your floor.
For those of you who mock the wolf shirt beware. There is an old Navajo story about a young man who made fun of another man for wearing a wolf trio shirt. Legend has it that in his sleep, the wolves on the other man’s shirt came to life and tore his body to shreds. They never found any part of that man’s body. The Wolf is something to be respected and feared, not treated like a novelty.
Hands down the most inexplicably bizarre game for Wii I’ve ever seen
Yo mama is so attractive she could be on the cover of Prevention.
The inspiration for this project was to determine who could generate the worst flatulence measurable in a personally unbiased manner.
D is unlike any other executive conference. Since its debut in 2003, D has brought to life the energy and excitement of the digital revolution in an unscripted, upfront and unparalleled way. Read more »
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