Colligan Laughs Off iPhone Competition

but maybe not...guess Colligan must be right!

More like: how could ANY company make as many mistakes as Palm has and advance as slowly as Palm has over the past few years?

And: how could Apple (the Masters of Style and Marketing) fail to produce a phone that appeals to more people than Palm's Communist (WE know what you want. Take it or leave it) Scchool of Design? As the Q, etc are showing, cellphone customers have no special loyalty to Palm. Palm's loyal customers were PDA users and they were abandoned by the company a few YEARS ago.

The question begs, though: how long have Apple been working on the iPhone?

Around 3 years. And rumor has it the iPhone design was finalized earlier this year, is ALREADY in production and will be available before mid-2007. Hey Colligan: Bravado and posturing is a poor substitute for shipping solid product at a realistic price. And please remember that just because Palm is incompetent doesn't mean that its competition is as well.

And unlike palm it would seem, Apple has not forgotten the lost art of beta testing.

Ouch!

Which would sell better to the average Joe: An LG Chocolate gussied up with Apple styling and perfect iTunes/iMovie integration or a Treo 600/650/700W/700p/700WX/680/690/695/696/697/698/699/699.5/699.51...?

It's not just about devices. Palm must have relationships with dozens of carriers around the world by now - that's not something you can build overnight. Anyone who has had any business dealings with a carrier will agree - it takes alot of time to get these guys on side. So even with the best device on the planet you gotta convince the carriers of that, and possibly even change their blinkered thinking if you're offering something left of field...

JLM.

Girlfriend, a few problems with that theory:

- Palm's carrier relationships are not as solid as you seem to think they are. And now that they are no longer the only game in town, Palm's failures to deliver compelling product to the (cutthroat) carriers in a timely manner will result in immediate (and painful) repercussions. Empty promises are not tolerated in the cellphone industry. Just look what Sprint did to Sony Ericsson and Samsung.
- Apple has street cred and brand recognition that makes Palm look like Yugo (you DO remember Yugo, right?)
- Jobs is already on record as saying how much he despises the control that carriers have. But if Apple was to simply buy bandwidth from a major carrier and become a Mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) they effectively take a lot of headaches out of the equation. How many teenyboppers do you think there are out there that would think it's coooool to have trusted Apple as their cellphone provider, at the same time buying their iPhones, iAccessories, iTunes, iMovies, iBooks and iPoo™ while they suckle contentedly on "Svengali" Steve Jobs' rancid iTeat? 2 million? 5 million? 10 million? Before you answer that, ask yourself how many iPods will Apple sell this Christmas. And how mant iPods have been sold in the past 3 years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod#Sales
Don't bet against the Apple iNet becoming a smash hit almost instantly. Apple knows how to sell crap - to people that didn't even know they wanted that crap - just by making Apple crap seem COOL. Jobs won't be able to make enough of his iPoo to keep up with demand from the huddled masses.

TVoR

Even better: "iMobile."

Becoming their own MVNO would make a certain amount of sense for Apple, particularly since it would mean that they could power their own over-the-air iTunes service. I'd find it doubtful, though.

Ouch. I almost couldn't believe the quote when I saw it. Unbelievable! What an absurd thing to say. "PC guys"? Who does he think he's referring to? Didn't the last couple of years of the "iPod revolution" show him anything?

And: "We've learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone,". No, the last few years you've been making minor tweaks to a decent phone. You don't have another few years left! Not if you keep up business as usual. (Maybe, just maybe the "Hawkins secret project" will be a grandslam homerun, but I have very little faith at this point.)

So, where's Gekko with that Bill Gates quote about running scared? Seems mighty appropirate at this point.

I'm still waiting for the mythical color HandEra.

So what does that leave us? Likely the same as an iPod: a slick, stylish retail product. It'll be a good-looking feature phone that will sell very well. It won't kill Treos outright because they're popular enterprise devices and will always have that to fall back on.

Unless Apple totally surprise us and the iPhone is a smartphone, Colligan is right to laugh. Like LiveFaith said - why worry about a first-time player in the phone market like Apple when you have companies like Nokia and Motorola gunning for you?

Tim
I apologise for any and all emoticons that appear in my posts. You may shoot them on sight.
Treo 270 ---> Treo 650

The screen... isn't big enough for music? There's something that doesn't seem right about that idea...

And that Kool-Aid is a bit more expensive than water, isn't it? And on top of that, I heard Bill Gates urinated in the Kool-Aid water!

TVoR

Ed says "Get movin' with that secret biz, Jeff!"

Pat Horne

[and...man!...if he did his synapses ARE getting rusty!]

Yup... This wont hurt Palm, it might take small amounts of dumbphones from Motorola, Sony Erricson, LG, Nokia and the likes, but not from smartphomnes of any type.

Nah, there's to precident at all for that...

Every ipod syncs PIM data with sync technology either via the MacOSX sync framework or via iTunes.

Apples iSync/.mac combo already keeps my PIM data for 2 Macs, 2 cellphones, 2 ipods, and a TX wirelessly synced via Bluetooth and WiFi.

Current (extensive) list of Apple sync supported platforms:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/isync/devices.html

Motorola phones(3)
Nokia Series 60 Smartphones(6)
Nokia Series 40 phones(6)
Palm One phones and PDAs(1)
Panasonic Series 60 phones(6)
Sendo phones(6)
Siemens phones(6)
Sony Ericsson P800, P900 and P910(6)
Sony Ericsson phones(6)

So not even a hint of a dedication to PIM data there...

But purely PIM does not a smartphone make.
The nearest product they've put out to date is the ipod.
With that, they're also selling third party downloadable games, they have a *massive* third party accessory market (many now with hardware drivers in the firmware). That accessory market has a massive online and retail chain network established, and enjoys partnerships with large hip brands for accessories. Think Apple isn't casting an eye to expanded accessory revenues in another new product line?

The last time Palm had that going for them was in the HandEra/Clie years.

Heck, unlike my Palm, I can even dual-boot my ipod into Linux.

Palm may be laughing in public, but if they have any sense, they'll be building altars and razing the california country side for livestock to offer on them, praying that Apple doesn't step into the ring with direct competition, or at the very least that the smoke and incense will blind potential Apple buyers, until they can get *something* out of R&D other than "look ma, no antenna".

" including the wildly popular Apple Computer -- could easily win customers in the finicky smart-phone sector."

They don't even have a product announced and they've already got customers for it. All it needs in the Apple name on it and it's sold in numbers Palm would kill for. Many of here will remember a day long ago when that was the case for Palm products. A good many of us here I'm sure have the same museum starting with Palm "pilots" with expanded memory cards, starting a whole string of devices along the way, modems, power sleds, IR blasters, add on LED's and vibrate modules, "weather guide" module, barcode modules, the whole deal.

Apple users have come to be acustomed to products that in general just work, are easy to use, and great support for accessories (accessories including things like most car brands now with ipod support or even the airline seatback displays for ipod video playback on 6 different carriers). Those are all things many smartphone users will be looking for. There's still too many Treo users in my earshot saying, "sure but can I just get this thing to hold a decent phone call, and sync my contacts properly".

Then google 2 sets of words at image.google.com "palm store" and "apple store".

Coles notes of the things Palm needs to fear of an Apple entrance on their turf.
Universal brand recognition
Universal accessory support
Substantial accessory partner interest

And, Palm needs to understand that Apple isn't Windows Mobile. Their pockets are as deep, but their R&D is better, and Apple demonstrably shows that they "get" the personal product space, can deliver what a consumer wants, and unlike MS and Palm, have a healthy multifaceted distribution channel in place.

I'm fanatically PalmOS committed to a fault, constantly cursing everyday that brings new Windows Mobile hardware I'd run except for the absence of PalmOS on it, and even I'd likely bolt to an Apple release. The only question is how long I'd still tote my Palm as well...

But assuming that something is going to sell big simply because of the brand is a very arrogant, dangerous attitude for any company to take.

They haven't. Haven't said a word in fact. It was my comment, based on hosts of various influential podcasts. I'm just repeating the pent up desire being expressed for apples approach to that product.

Look at the torrent of negative press and gamer feedback Sony has gotten recently (for quite awhile now, actually) over the PS3, despite the fact that the Playstation brand is synonymous with gaming across the world nowadays.

Not much of a comparison though. Nevermind the PS3, what if *anything* has Sony gotten right in recent memory. What in recent memory has Apple gotten wrong (apart perhaps from buying a couple million laptop batteries from Sony). Sure there's the emac, and the G4 cube, a good ways back. Every company has it's misteps. But on the balance, which ones demontrate a consistent top tier batting average, learn from mistakes, continually refine products, as well as breaking out into totally new directions, while covering the bottom line.

Palm just doesn't compare there and hasn't for almost a decade.

I imagine Apple aren't looking to build a mobile computer, they're looking to build a really good phone/music player. I really don't think Apple are going to be competing for the smartphone space*. At least, not with iPhone's first iteration...

Fortunately the 2nd iteration is already in progress. Dunno though. If you took a current ipod, put a cellular radio, and a user input system on it, you'd pretty much already have a smart phone (PIM, syncing, 3rd party software and hardware, user up-dateable firmware).

People are still hanging on to and using Apples PDA's (newton), lest we forget the PIM side isn't unfamiliar territory for them.

But sure, we'll have to see what's for seeing, when it's seeable. J'us saying scoffin' given this set of variables is a fools game. 'Specially when we're comparing one company just off a 52 week low on their stock (and at that only on renewed buyout rumors), and the other is at a 52 week high. One's got game, and the other is starting to leave a bit of a gamey taste in the mouth.

And yet, this is *JUST* what Colligan did in making such comments. Palm's hubris seems to know no bounds, all while they continue to destroy themselves by committing to an arena full of fierce competition while ignoring the sector they used to dominate.

_________________
Sean

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.