Remember when Palm, Inc.(NASD:PALM) was an important technology company? They owned the PDA market during the 90's, with the original Palm Pilot and the sleek Palm V, then launched the Treo, the first successful smartphone. Palm was innovative and everyone in tech owned one.
It's been years since most of us have paid any attention to Palm. My last recollection of Palm was seeing what appeared to be a new version of the same old PDA hanging in a display at the cash register at Staples, alongside some rainbow-colored Sharpies and some heart-shaped Post-It notes.
Yesterday, Palm was the star of the CES show in Las Vegas. Bloggers were live-blogging and live-tweeting the Palm announcement of their new Pre smartphone and the launch of a new O/S. Palm stock traded up 35% on yesterday's news. This morning, I was shocked to see Palm as the top company listed on Alacra Street Pulse, our new app that shows the companies most talked about by analysts.
So, does Palm have a chance in the smartphone market? Personally, I don't see it. While the market is still in its infancy, it will be extremely difficult for Palm to gain share against the iPhone, Blackberry and various phones on the Microsoft and Symbian platforms. Thanks to the iPhone, the key factor for smartphones is 3rd party applications and I don't see developers ramping up to build for Palm. The product is not yet out and only time will tell how aggressively Sprint pushes the device, but I'm not optimistic. That said, it's nice to see Palm at least with a glimmer of hope for rebirth, even if just for a day.
