While the Pixi isn’t likely to overshadow the buzz of Apple’s press event this afternoon, Palm is showing that it does indeed have the moxie (the audacity, if you will) to stand up to the big dogs. If you’ll think back just three months to the launch of the Pre, where Palm showed it had the balls to launch two days before the world knew Apple would unveil the new iPhone. Apple is expected today to show off their latest iPod line, while most eyes will be waiting to see if Steve Jobs and his patented Reality Distortion Field will be making an appearance, Palm’s going to be standing at the sidelines waving two Pixi phones over their head screaming “Look at me!” And the media will look, as they like nothing more than to compare to the iPhone.
Now, Palm and Apple aren’t going to be the only ones making noise today. The long awaited complete digital remastering of The Beatles’ albums will be released today. Also hitting the scene will be The Beatles: Rock Band, possibly the most anticipated release of Rock Band to date.
As I said above, it’s only been three months since Palm launched the Pre, also on Sprint. Since then they’ve launched the Pre on Bell Mobility in Canada and announced a partnership with O2 to carry the Pre in Europe. While these wouldn’t be notable accomplishments for a company of Apple’s size (35,000 employees and $32 billion revenue for 2008), it’s quite audacious for Palm. With just 1,000 employees, Palm is small potatoes in the smartphone market, especially when you consider that in 2009 Palm lost $739 million just trying to stay afloat.
The rapid fire pace of releases has several advantages for Palm. Firstly, it allows them to have an expanded product portfolio. This means that there will be more than one webOS device on the shelves in Sprint stores, as well as gives carriers different options for which phone they want to carry (look at RIM’s prolific BlackBerry line for evidence of how well this works). By putting out a new device so soon, especially one that is visibly quite different than the Pre, Palm is setting themselves up in the public’s eye as being able to produce notably different devices, even if they are notably similar on the inside. By spitting out a lower-tier device like the Pixi, Palm is also opening up a new front in their war to regain their place as a top-tier smartphone provider. By unveiling the Pixi so soon after the Pre, Palm is staying fresh in the eyes of the media and consumers and may be able to capture the attention of consumers who were interested in the Pre, but turned off by the styling or price.
So yes, Palm’s got moxie. It takes guts to do this to Apple once, but twice in just three months is really ballsy. For as much as Palm protested that they weren’t shooting to capture Apple’s marketshare (which we know is a next-to-impossible task), they sure keep setting themselves up against Apple, eh?
Comments
er...how'd this happen already and get reported? Right now, it's 9:25pm on 9/8. Did they do the press release on the East Coast? And did the press and PreCentral know it was coming so as to stay up for it? How did all these stories go up so quickly?! Where and when was this demo held? And precentral was there and you didn't give us notice? Hmmm...was it in one of the two most recent podcasts? Maybe I should have made time to listen to those...
yeah I was thinking the same thing..I checked this site sometime Tues evening and there was nothing about Pixie...then in the wee hrs of the morning Wed I see Pixie news all over the site. A midnight announcement? That's kinda strange to me..even 9pm PST is a odd time.
Most things time wise revolve around the east coast anyway, with NYC being the media capital, and the most densely populated region of the US along the Northeast & Mid Atlantic coast.
Palm is based in CA I believe anyway so I guess they're saying the hell with that we're going to do things the Cali way.
Why are people complaining about super fast info delivery?!
This was not smart. The news will be all about Apple today and there might be a footnote saying oh by the way Palm released an underpowered less capable device with no wi-fi. In case anyone cares.
I think this is great! I can't wait to get my hands on the Pixi! I have been looking at the Pre since the release and to be honest the slider always felt cheep and didn't fit right into my hands. I wanted something similar to the Treo 700 series, and this is it! Thank you Palm....now the wait begins!
By the way I saw this morning that Palm's stock was down graded. With less than great sales numbers of the Pre maybe the push for the release of the Pixi is what they need to not only draw in more iphone customers but also head off HTC's HERO....just a thought.
too little, too early. it will be off the front page of every tech blog by time the new apple stuff get announced.
It looks to me that palm is tired of being behind. Which I think is great, for being a smaller company employee wise. Now why does every one have to be compared to apple on phones when they stepped in a bit late in the game. HTC had a great mogul (6800), moto had a nice run with the razr, the ipac? ( of course I name all US mobile devices) we can also look @ overseas devices and we have another ball game. I feel the only que palm needs from apple is the advertising idea. Apple really pushes on advertising.
I like the new palm pre , but its one thing that the i -phone got oven the palm pre and that's the sound and I don't know if its the sound or what ? Now what can I do about the sound....I need help can some one help me...
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