Think Positive: August 2009
For some reason when I decided to point out the numerous reasons the Palm Pre is doomed and the iPhone is superior Google Ad Sense decided that I should put a bunch of Palm Pre Ads on my site. The fact that I am now looking for different ad sources not withstanding, it was an interesting point. After all Think Positive has always been about that tiny chance that with innovation and consumer loyalty maybe someday a company can turn around! Ironically not only is that what Palm is trying they’re doing the exact same thing Apple was when this column began, and they’re doing it using many of the same people!
I should get something out of the way. I don’t really like the Pre. I think it’s not only an iPhone rip off it’s one that was executed by folks who worked on the iPhone and had a grudge. I rather hope Apple takes them to task over this. That said developers do sometimes have differing opinions on how something should work and the Pre developers, many from Apple, went walking with their notion which Apple had poo poo’d. (If poo poo isn’t a verb it should be).
But in the spirit of look at the good and not so much the bad the Pre certainly well executes that alternative vision. It also represents something I’ve been saying for years (more than 10! You can now look at my first article ever on exactly this topic!) the specialized company is a myth. Specialized companies don’t perform well. WallStreet loves them because it means you have to research very little to talk about them. Problem is they usually fail or their stock goes flat. Look at Quark: years of one trick pony and all that’s happened is that multifaceted competitors have lined up to do better and eroded Quark’s market-share consistently.
Palm, back when it was a name WallStreet loved decided to do something idiotic. I don’t use phrases like idiotic lightly but in the context of the tim there’s little else to describe it. Apple was coming back big time by owning both the hardware and the software. Palm, a company even then made up largely of former Apple folks, decided that was silly and to split the company down the middle. It failed spectacularly. Palm Source nose dived like the Hindenburg (the fact that the Hindenburg caught fire and sort of tail dived not withstanding).
Who develops WebOS, the operating system that aside from being an iPhone rip off, is pretty much the appeal of the Pre? Why Palm, Inc. The company that was supposed to be the hardware folks. The company that even decided that Palm OS was over with to the extent they licensed Windows Mobile (Which in the future will be described in a different generation when compared to the Pre, iPhone OS/OS X, Android, and whatever Nokia comes up with). Jetisoning Palm OS was called for just as parting ways with Mac OS had to happen. Wasting resources and sending talent into another company probably wasn’t.
What thrills me is that I can actually say I told you so. My arrogance aside there cannot be a more perfect comparison. Apple embraced the combination of hardware and software to create a real solution. Palm embraced idiotic WallStreet analyst and sent their sole advantage packing. That alone would have tickled me pink and still made for a great 10 years latter analysis. But the kicker is Palm is a player now because they did an about face on the hardware software split!
I am still skeptical that Palm is turned around. In fact part of that is because Palm seems to be a favorite home of folks Apple sent packing. Pre can only take them so far. But Pre can also take them pretty far. In my opinion Palm survived because folks who knew what they were doing on the Newton jumped ship and crated a product so awesome that even idiotic management had a hard time sinking the ship. Apple did this too, the Mac road this out for almost 20 years. Neither company should however end up feeling like the high school quarter back after he flunked college. Apple turned their 1-2 punch success into a real platform. Palm can too but though I cannot tell you how I can tell you how not; splitting the company in 2 won’t work, didn’t work, and would kill the ground Pre has recovered. In the spirit of Thinking Positively let’s hope they do. After all not everyone can afford the latest iPhone, and without someone at least trying to compete Apple won’t be as quick with iPhone advancements (obvious Apple loyalism quite intentional).