I went to Moscone to witness the Palm’s keynote at Web 2.0 Expo first hand.
Michael Abbott, Palm’s senior vice president of Applications Software and Services, was slated to start at 5:10pm and run for 10 minutes. When I arrived, it was clear the schedule had slipped out 15 minutes. He delivered a 7-minute presentation that started and ended with “why Palm is here.” To talk directly to developers about webOS and the transformative change it is bringing to the mobile platform.
Palm put out a press release, and a follow-up blog post that covered what happened. The biggest news from the keynote was the invite to apply for the early access program at the Palm Developer Network website.
In my opinion, the second biggest news was the turnout and air of excitement. The third floor of Moscone West was absolutely buzzing during the keynote and after with Palm’s reception drawing a huge crowd.
I also had a chance to speak with Paul Cousineau, Palm’s director of product management (see below). He said they are taking applications for this developer program starting tonight and they’d be reviewing applicants in the morning. He talked about how they wanted to go slow and make sure they got a good group that would drive the process – which to me sounded like they were trying to beta test the SDK so that things would go smoothly when it was in general release.
The emphasis was on ensuring a good experience – for developers and users.
BTW. Saw the big boss, Palm’s CEO Ed Colligan working the room.
Comments
"By the end of June" is fine, in theory, but IMO if Palm is hyping the Pre this hard in late March and early April, they'd better have it in customer hands by early May. If the wait goes longer than that, I could easily see hype-ennui setting in, or (even worse) hype-backlash.
I think you mean Sprint's CEO Ed Colligan at the end of the article.
Ed Colligan is CEO of Palm. Sprint's man at the top is Dan Hesse.
Did anyone get an invite to the beta? Feel free to respond anonymously, just wondering.
Cmon guys, noone has mentioned the most important thing pictured....free beer!!!!!
Considering that some of us avoid beer like the plague, I can't say it's a big deal.
It's been 19 hours since I applied, and no response. :(
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