When it comes to Apple, rumours are an almost essential part of the mythos. Entire websites are dedicated to publishing rumours about supposed new products, software updates, “leaked” images, and even the personal lives of its executives. These rumours are almost exclusively benign, and allow us to have silly debates nobody cares about. However, for some companies, rumours turn nasty – very nasty. Palm just went through two of these.
Yesterday, we already pondered Palm’s current position and the company’s future, and while you can argue about whether or not it will survive, we can all agree on the fact that a rough spot has been hit. The last thing a company in this situation needs is crazy rumours that find their way all over the media.
The first destructive rumour came yesterday when some stock research firm claimed that Palm had halted production of the Pixi and Pre. Engadget and PreCentral did something revolutionary and, you know, contacted Palm and just… Asked. It turned out to be nothing. Palm’s statement was concise.
“Palm regularly adjusts its product manufacturing levels to manage inventory,” the company stated, “In anticipation of the Verizon Wireless launch and Chinese New Year, we increased production levels prior to February, and anticipate ramping production back up after the Chinese New Year ends.”
Of course, the media were already all over it by then. If that wasn’t enough, another crazy rumour made its way into the media – and this one was clearly concocted to be destructive. A lot of major tech news outlets (alas, we aren’t big enough) received an email in which it was said that a leaked internal memo from Jon Rubinstein announced that Palm would switch to Android.
“While Palm is incredibly proud of our engineers who spent timeless work and effort to bring us this advanced operating system, consumers simply have not caught on,” Rubinstein supposedly said in the supposed memo, “To provide a better future for ourselves and our customers, the only logical choice is to transition our hardware and software to the Android platform.”
The email further stated that Palm would create a Sense UI-like thing on top of Android. It was said that the full memo would be published on Wikileaks by midnight last night. The memo never appeared, so the story was clearly a fiction. Engadget contacted Palm, and they basically laughed at the whole thing, and clearly denied everything.
While the first rumour is clearly just a misunderstanding, the second one was actually deliberately thought up, and effort was put into it. It makes me rather sad that things like this happen – it’s one thing to come up with benign rumours (the Apple way), but these destructive ones are just appalling.
Some of you may wonder – why do I call the second rumour destructive? Well, you have to understand that Palm’s value proposition is webOS. Switching to Android, as the rumour suggested, would basically take away everything that sets Palm apart from HTC and other Android phone makers.
Joking aside, just making WebOS Android compatible wouldn’t be the stupidest thing. They would get lots of apps, the lack of apps seems to be a major problem for WebOS atm.
WebOS would still be the best mobile OS and have lots of apps.
Well, they’re both Linux machines, so maybe it would be possible to run that Java VM thing Android uses and then integrate it properly with the card metaphor.
“The webOS. Where Android apps feel at home.”
Heh.
Why would Palm exactly want to do that? It would be no different than any other Android powered device (nothing bad with Android). Why when they have their own OS?
I think the problem is not in the OS but in their marketing strategy. There was an article recently on Engadget stating where Palm went wrong and how they can fix it. Remember, Palm devices were also powered by the PalmOS and Windows and they all failed. This tells me something. It is as if they are going in circle so changing the OS yet again will NOT make any difference especially not with their devices. I personally have never been a fan of the way Palm’s devices look.
Also, adding Android support is not that simple regardless whether they are both running Linux. WebOS apps are that, WebOS with their own set of APIs where Android again has its own set of API functions.
Edit: You see, I got a HTC Hero because I could not get a Palm Pre in my region. Obviously Palm is not powerful enough to strike a deal with carriers but if that is the case then why not sell it outright? However I am kind of glad I went with HTC Hero
Edited 2010-03-24 09:22 UTC
I think “construe” is the wrong word in this context. To construe is to understand or interpret something in a certain way. For example, “I construed his actions as hostile”.
I’m trying to think of the word that I think you meant to use. It’s “on the tip of my tongue”, but I can’t seem to think of it. Oh well, I’ll probably get it right after I post this.
I saw Thom’s use of the word and couldn’t work out why he used such a work; construed means a misunderstanding where as I would say at the very least it was a malicious and deliberately crafted piece of chicanery by those who have the most to gain from a Palm share drop in advance of the AT&T launch – in other words a pump and dump story. I am surprised, therefore, that the SEC hasn’t gotten involved given the blatantly obvious manufacturing of market manipulating stories.
Edited 2010-03-24 00:50 UTC
Doesn’t construed mean “created with malicious intent”? That’s what I always thought; like in “construed evidence”.
Sadly, I only have my iPhone here. Someone else will have to fix it.
I also understood what you meant right away ..
Might be because Im not a native english speaker either..
Haven’t you people ever heard of the internet?
http://www.google.com/search?q=define+construe&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq…
You’re confusing “construed” with “misconstrued”, but even that isn’t with malicious intent.
Contrived
No.
“Obviously planned or calculated; not spontaneous or natural; labored”
Nothing about malicious.
He might have meant ‘concoct’, I suppose.
I don’t think a shortage in devices quite compares with a operating system shift… the first one would be much more damaging than the other. Seems like an early April Fool’s Day joke to me…
Thom, I think you’re not giving Apple enough credit. I’d bet on the fact that a large proportion of the Apple rumours are not benign rumours but deliberately leaked bits of information. Apple are the masters of viral marketing and creating a hype of anticipation before any launch. And I have to say they’re getting better at it. The IPad launch was one of the most eloquently orchestrated viral marketing campaigns I’ve ever witnessed. The “rumoured” Apple tablet was all over the news for months, and not only tech news but also mainstream news.
Unlike the Jojo.
However it’s just a theory Apple leaks stuff. I doubt they leaked the iPad had a camera build in, that it multitasked or had a SD slot. These were rumors too and these had a negative effect when the iPad was shown as it didn’t live up to some expectations.
Considering the number of sites and journalists dedicating all their time on Apple news it doesn’t take much to set things off. Apple products create hype and the media love hypes, because even when they write speculative trash people will still read it, debate it and love it. So it’s in the interest of the media to contribute to the hype.
Thom, you mention two rumors, describe both, and then go on to ignore the first.
Actually the first wasn’t a rumor. You haven’t done your homework. Palm did stop production. But it wasn’t for the one week they were saying it was for, as the Chinese New Year work stoppage in China is just for that week. It was for three weeks. We then find out that both Sprint and Verizon have stopped taking in new phones. And that information came directly from Palm!
Palm was being deceptive. It wasn’t the first time. It was good investigative work that found out.
The fact is that Palm simply isn’t selling phones to actual people. They are selling phones to their customers who happen to be the carriers. But there’s little sell through. Of 960,000 phones shipped to carriers last quarter, only 408,000 sold through to end users. Those are Palm’s own numbers.
No wonder they stopped production for three weeks! considering that their phone sales continue to drop, how long will it take for the rest of those phones to sell? That’s going to be another production halt or slowdown for them.
And it won’t be a rumor either.
Yes. They announced so earlier this year. And confirmed that this week. It’s the basis of the rumour. The rumour claims production was halted – without the “temporarily” modifier. In addition, the rumour made no mention whatsoever about the fact this temporary halt is a) normal during the Chinese new year, and b) announced by Palm earlier this year.
Chinese New Year takes 15 days.
Source?
Source?
Sources?
[quote]Palm did stop production.
Yes. They announced so earlier this year. And confirmed that this week. It’s the basis of the rumour. The rumour claims production was halted – without the “temporarily” modifier. In addition, the rumour made no mention whatsoever about the fact this temporary halt is a) normal during the Chinese new year, and b) announced by Palm earlier this year.
But it wasn’t for the one week they were saying it was for, as the Chinese New Year work stoppage in China is just for that week.
Chinese New Year takes 15 days.
It was for three weeks.
Source?
We then find out that both Sprint and Verizon have stopped taking in new phones. And that information came directly from Palm!
Source?
Palm was being deceptive. It wasn’t the first time. It was good investigative work that found out.
Sources?[/quote]
There are a number of articles on this.
http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2010/02/11/whats-up-with-p…
This is an early one, and has some contradicting information, some of which at least seems to be true. notice in the next article, it states that the holiday is just for one week as far as work goes, not two. Then Palm tells them that they will start production back up at the end of the month. But they stopped nearer to the beginning.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/35607982/Palm_s_Major_Credibility_Problem
There’s more on this, but I don’t think that we need to go to all of them, do you?
The fact is that I no longer trust anything that Palm says. there has been too much they are saying that is odd, not true, or misleading.
Take the statement about the Droid that Ruby made at the meeting the other day. Do you really think that Palms sales would be what the Droids were if their phones came out on Verizon first? I don’t believe that, and no one else does either.
It’s just like using the excuse of Sprint. That’s no excuse. Palm’s phones are just not wanted.
Look at the UK, O2 was giving them away with a contract, but people aren’t taking. Sales in Ireland, a small country, were 220 phones in 85 days or so, and the same per capita numbers are believed to be for the UK as well. That’ less than 2,500 phones there. A disaster.
http://www.9to5mac.com/applevpalm
http://www.slashgear.com/only-220-palm-pre-sold-in-ireland-since-la…
Do I really need to link a source that was palm itself? You don’t read this? Sprint and Verizon put a hold on new phones from palm. This was all over the news. Palm made that statement.
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/02/25/palm-ceo%E2%80%9…
Notice the; “prompted our U.S. carrier partners to put additional orders on hold for the time being.”.
In addition, the $500 million in cash they are talking about is more than balanced by medium and long term debt, which they didn’t bother to mention.
There is so much wrong with Palm that a couple of analysts said a target price for Palm’s shares is $0. That’s understandable as Palm’s total debt is more than its total worth, including all revenue from partners.
http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/03/19/palm.may.not.survive….
Palm’s report, done in such a way so as to be about as hard to read as possible. Still, it doesn’t look good.
Estimates for next quarter’s revenues are less than half of last years, at $150 million.
http://investor.palm.com/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=453337
I know that some people, particularly techies and geeks, love the Pre and Pixi, but they really are terrible phones for many reasons.
The hardware isn’t very good, and WebOS, for all the enthusiasm by those geeky writers on the web, isn’t easy to understand for most people. While most companies are trying to copy the iPhone because it works, WebOS remains an OS that requires some time with the manual. That’s not what most people want. We can see the results in the sales around the world where it’s being sold, which now includes Germany. So we can’t simply blame Sprint, or now Verizon. That’s too easy to blame every carrier they’re with. The reason is Palm and their products.
Edited 2010-03-24 16:15 UTC
What makes Android so promising to developers is the number of devices it will be on. Ie bang for buck.
WebOS by single producer yep in trouble.
iphone advantage first and decanted Apple fans.
Windows Mobile 7. Could also be in trouble.
We could be seeing the change dooming solo OS development for good. Only major solo maker hold out is RIM. iphone is not really solo is part a shared OS with OS X.
Using that logic, Windows Mobile is also a shared OS with the desktop/server versions of Windows (definitely before Windows Mobile 7) as the OS is similar. However, in both cases, they’re certainly not identical and perfectly easy to migrate things across: the mobile OS versions tend to lack quite a few things the desktop versions have, and they’ve been diverging over time.
WebOS can be said to be diverging from/similar to…. a web browser with the standard DOM, with some meaningful exceptions, but also some of those are related to fitting things into a mobile device screen and other resources, just like iPhoneOS and Windows Mobile.
Android is sort of like the Windows Mobile mutation of desktop (Wait, did I just type that?) Linux, though I suspect there’ll be more low-level commonality under Android, but the GUI portion is its own animal. Oddly enough, what may make things harder long-term for developers is that while Android has a required minimal system, a lot of phone makers will go to major efforts to differentiate the hardware, which will likely result in the same thing as already exists for many other phones: fragmentation where software needs to be written to work for the lowest common denominator hardware, in order to keep development/testing costs down.
RIM’s system is what it is: RIM’s system, with no commonality (that I’m aware of) with a desktop OS.
precentral.net says a Pre release to China is imminent.
That should clear any inventories immediately.
Unlikely, I am sure they had Preee knock offs on sale for like $10.00 for months in China.
There is simply no such thing as a “Chinese market” for any Western technology firm trying to compete in the low end/mass market technology segment. Period.
Edited 2010-03-24 21:30 UTC
I’m completely baffled by the second rumor. The article mentioned that it originated by an email sent to major outlets. Who sent the email?
It can’t be one of their “trusted insiders” or something like that, since sending completely fake information would ruin their credibility.
So could it be just a guy with a lot of time? Can I really send an email to everybody saying “Apple will start shipping Macs with Windows ME” and watch the world crumble?
Sadly, the answer is yes. We can make the entire planet believe the climate myth, so making them believe Apple is switching to Windows ME ought to be peanuts.
Ouch!! I hope that was ironic, otherwise you’ve just lost all credibility. Because frankly if you think that climate change is a myth you’re the anonymous person who sents out the email starting the rumour.
Wow!
To those who don’t understand the issue, or who are politically against the concept, it may be a myth, but not to those who do understand it.
Please stick to technology and operating system Thom. Now you’re just going off the deep end. You sound like like a kooky conspiracy theorist.
I’m increasingly seriously considering a smartphone, and I have to admit I’m not really heavily considering the Palm Pre because I’d like a phone with a future ahead of it: support, and enough app development to make the ‘smart’ part of ‘smartphone’ worthwhile.
If Palm really is going to go under soon, that’s a serious knock against the Pre. Yes, I bought into the fear, uncertainty and doubt everyone is sowing around Palm right now… it had better be real, or people like me will accidentally MAKE it real, which is unfair to Palm.
Edited 2010-03-24 19:38 UTC
Would be nice if Google would just absorb Palm and their products. Palm was for the handheld what Apple is to the desktop; their names exude style. Graffiti was easy to type pretty fast once you got used to it, sometimes even a little faster than the iPhone/Touch’s interface. A stylus is also nice to use on the screen – as opposed to the fingers – when it comes to precision. “Droid HotSync” has a nice marketing ring to it.
The prettiness associated with Palm had everything to do with the icons and gui. You had common built-in tools like notepad, calculator, contacts, tasks, to do list, and calendar. They also supported rough apps for expenses, memos, datebook, and a simple control panel for preferences.
One thing that they would need to insist upon would be for the Palm derivatives to use a common keypad/touchscreen (maybe even one that supports both stylus and fingertip use), screen ratio, and minimum hardware cpu/gpu specs. The reason Palm was so nice was because from one version to the next its interface and performance was consistent.
I, too, loved Graffiti, and used a full screen version of it on my various Treos even though they had a market-leading physical keyboard at the time.
My wife was so entertained by my rapid Graffiti texting that she bought one, too.
It was such a central part of Palm’s culture than I can’t understand why it’s not supported on WebOS. (I realize you’d need a special stylus for the capacitative screen, but I *like* my N900’s stylus on tightly packed web pages anyway.)
I never understood the one button on iPhone. If you had a second, third or fourth button the capacity to do work would multiply. And if you could use button combinations you extend it even further. I could see holding a “shift” button so that you could use your finger as a stylus for Graffiti. Heck, even my watch uses five buttons! Instead of buttons doing things by themselves most should act as “shit”, “function”, “delete”, “alt”, or “cotrol” keys like on the standard keyboard. I.E. Hold “ctrl” key and scribble a “C” on the screen to perform “copy”. Phones, too, could finally use ctrl-alt-del!!
I just much prefer the stylus for precision is all.
Graffiti wasn’t a proper Palm product. In fact, they lost the right to use it in later devices, so they had to drop it. I got Graffiti II for my Treo 700p.
It was developed by Xerox as Unistroke. Xerox sued, and Palm lost the case.
You’re more or less correct – thanks! Xerox had a similar patented concept, which the inventor of Graffiti saw before Palm developed their system. They then proceeded to sue each other for years, each winning various legal victories. Palm finally paid Xerox $22.5M and they agreed to stop suing each other for 7 years, presumably so the lawyers could enjoy the fruits of their “labors”.
Another great example of how software patents promote “the Progress of Science and useful Arts”, right?
I’m sure Palm is thoroughly sick of Graffiti by now, and wouldn’t willingly go with a parsec of it. *sigh*
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graffiti_%28Palm_OS%29. Thanks for the update, though.
I don’t understand the current negativity coming toward Palm. People usually rally around the underdog, especially when they truly deserve it. The Pre along with WebOS is a great product. Small, elegant, functional and fun to use. The Pre-plus is much improved hardware that is now available on multiple carriers. WebOS has been constantly improved in performance and functionality since the launch – And Palm is not locking it down but rather openly encouraging homebrew development and customization. That should make it much more appealing to techies than the overly controlled competition. Its the best, most fun phone i’ve ever used by far.