Author: Ryan Kairer

Palm has now officially announced the details for its webOS launch on Société Française du Radiotéléphone. As foretold, the Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus phones will be available on April 27 on SFR’s online store (www.sfr.fr) and on May 11 in all SFR stores and in retail.

Frank Esser, SFR chairman and chief executive officer, said, “SFR is extremely proud to be the first operator to launch Palm webOS smartphones in France. This alliance comes within the scope of our strategy to provide the best user experience for mobile Internet and the widest range of smartphones to our customers.”

“We are excited to bring the Palm webOS experience to France for the first time so SFR customers can benefit from the unique ability to use natural gestures to switch easily between multiple open applications and always stay up to date,” said Jon Rubinstein, Palm chairman and chief executive officer. “With the choice of the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus phones, customers across France can stay connected so they never miss a thing.”

Mike Abbott, Palm’s high profile SVP departure from last Friday, resigned from Palm Inc. for a new position at Twitter according to a new report. TechCrunch writes that the former webOS chief will become the next vice president of engineering at Twitter.

Mr. Abbott joined Palm in 2008 and lead the team that developed webOS. Before joining Palm, Michael was the general manager of .NET Online Services at Microsoft. His executive bio is still live at palm.com and his last day of work in Sunnyvale is this Friday.

Former Palm/PalmSource chief completive guy, Michael Mace, has once again put on his punditry hat to chime in on his former employers latest misfortunes. In his latest editorial Mr. Mace aims to give us his take on the situation Palm finds itself in today.

He begins with a bold conjecture that “the current incarnation of Palm has failed.” From there he takes readers on a tour of the current sentiment on Palm in the valley and beyond, then approaches the question whether it was marketing or lack of thoughtful marketing focus that doomed them this time. All in all its a good read with some interesting points from someone who had a front row seat for many of Palm’s corporate blunders from the last decade.

Tech Trader Daily has a round up piece out this morning on the latest analyst scuttlebutt on Palm Inc. Concerns that the company may not find a buyer have so far sent shares down ~10% in trading today.

TTD’s article sums up the comments from three long time Palm analysts, all of whom are rather pessimistic on the stock. UBS analyst Maynard Um thinks last Friday’s SVP departure and executive bonuses are a sign that a deal is not pending and he reckons that interest in the firm may be tepid. Morgan Keegan analyst Tavis McCourt reflects similar sentiments, but goes even further stating “Palm’s ability to execute a turnaround internally remains difficult.”

IT Security company Intrepidus Group has released details of a preliminary report on webOS security vulnerabilities. In short, the groups researchers were quite alarmed by the ease, number and scope of security issues that plagued their tested build of webOS. The group has posted details about a SMS vulnerability that affected webOS v1.3.5. They demonstrate that with a single text message, the researcher was able to control the browser, send malicious commands and turn off the radio of a webOS device with a relatively common exploit.

The group has also posted a video demo of the exploit in action. (embedded after the break) It should be noted that Palm Inc. has corrected this very issue in the latest version (v1.4+) of webOS. This story was originally picked up and popularized by CNBC, which colors this story with the Palm is for sale meme complete with a corpspeak response from Palm.

Palm Inc. announced today via a SEC 8-K filling that Michael R. Abbott, Senior Vice President of Software and Services, submitted his resignation. The filling details that his employment is expected to terminate effective April 23, 2010.

Mr. Abbott joined Palm in 2008 and lead the team that developed webOS. His management bio at Palm.com states Michael leads the application platform and services development for the company’s next-generation Palm webOS platform. […] Before joining Palm, Michael was the general manager of .NET Online Services at Microsoft, where he led efforts to deliver a services platform that enabled the development of large-scale Internet-based services. No reasons were given for his departure.

Paul Ghent, Palm’s vice president of European sales, has told the publication Total Telecom that the Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus would debut on SFR France by the end of the month. Specifically the handsets will first become available online on April 27th, while SFR retail locations will have them by May 11th.

The Pixi Plus will carry a €49 up front price tag, while the Pre Plus will cost €149, or €99 including €50 mail-in rebate. […] Ghent said Palm is also currently working on growing its handset range in a bid to broaden its appeal.

“We recognise that different people like different form factors, we realise there are other [market] segments out there…[and] we are developing products that will broaden our range,” he said.

Still holding out for a better deal on a Palm webOS smartphone? How does forking over one penny and a two year service commitment sound?

If that sounds like a reasonable offer, then prepare click your way on over to Amazon.com where they will sell you a brand new Palm Pre Plus or Pixi Plus on Verizon for a single shinny penny.

You read that right, Amazon has essentially dropped the price as low as it can go on Palm’s top of the line models. Simply sign a new 2 year service plan and the webOS model of your choice (with the free hotspot app in tow) can be had for as little as $0.01 with free 2-day shipping.

Palm Inc. announced today via a Schedule 13G SEC filing that Harbinger Capital Partners has purchased 16 million shares of common stock, representing a 9.48% passive stake in the company. Harbinger is a NYC based private hedge fund run by billionaire investor Philip A. Falcone. The hedge fund also owns large stakes in the New York Times Company, Cleveland-Cliffs and various satellite communications companies.

The investment was noteworthy not only for its size but also because this was made via the open market on already available shares. As such the common stock does not give Harbinger any special voting shares, (unlike Elevations deal) but it does represent nearly 10% of Palm’s 168,755,045 shares outstanding as of March 26, 2010. Palm stock was up today on the news, but closed up a modest .16 (~3%) at 5.36.

Bloomberg continues to drive the Palm speculation this week with another auspiciously timed piece. Their latest headline suggests that HTC is looking into having its own smartphone software platform. Without going into details the article also touches on the Palm acquisition meme, though HTC’s chief financial officer declined to comment on the issue.

“We continue to assess, but that requires a few conditions to justify” having our own system, Cheng Hui-ming, chief financial officer of the Taoyuan, Taiwan-based company, said in a phone interview today.

HTC’s own operating system would enable the company, which designs and produces phones using Google and Microsoft software, to reduce its reliance on outside developers. HTC is among possible bidders for Palm Inc., three people familiar with the situation said this month.

Gameloft has released its popular N.O.V.A. – Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance for webOS. Palm Pre users can now download and play one of the primer first person shooter style games for mobile devices.

The game features an epic single-player campaign with 13 levels set in the jungle, snow, spaceship, bunker and an alien city scape. In addition to the full 3D worlds, player can be outfitted with 6 different weapons and three different control schemes. Single and multiplayer modes with WiFi play are available with worldwide leaderboards. The webOS version is currently compatible with the Palm Pre and Pre Plus and sells for $6.99 from Palm’s app catalog.

Palm, Inc. today announced that the Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus phones will be available in Germany on both o2 and Vodafone on April 28.

“Following the success of the Palm Pre in Germany, we are excited to bring Pre Plus and Pixi Plus to the market for both o2 and Vodafone customers,” said Jon Rubinstein, Palm chairman and chief executive officer. “With the choice of these two new Palm webOS phones, customers across Germany can stay connected so they never miss a thing.”

Palm, Inc. will be featured as a special presenter at MDB Capital Group’s Bright Lights Conference on May 11, 2010 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. Bright Lights will feature more than 40 of the “Best and Brightest” IP leaders identified by MDB’s PatentVest IP intelligence platform as possessing technology leadership and potentially disruptive innovation. Palm’s Software CTO, Mitch Allen, will share his insights on Palm’s IP leadership and path of innovation where he has worked for the past decade. Mr. Allen has led the development of Palm webOS from conception to implementation.

Pete Conley, Managing Director of MDB Capital, will also present his analysis of Palm’s IP portfolio and the value of its technology pipeline, using MDB Capital’s proprietary PatentVest IP intelligence platform. “Palm’s IP is ranked in the 99.5th percentile of over 4,000 companies rated by PatentVest,” said Mr. Conley. “Based on PatentVest’s comparative valuation analysis, we believe the value of Palm’s IP alone is worth between $8 -$9 per share.”

Bloomberg is out with a widely referenced report this morning that states that Palm is seeking bids for the company as early as this week. The report claims that Palm has hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Frank Quattrone’s Qatalyst Partners to find a buyer according to the source. Last week’s rumored suitors Taiwan’s HTC and China based Lenovo have reportedly already looked and are potentially interested. Texas based Dell Inc is said to have already looked at Palm, but passed on a deal.

Naturally Palm, HTC and Lenovo have denied commenting on the latest developments so far. The article goes on to mention that other large Chinese phone companies, Huawei Technologies Co. and ZTE Corp., might also be potential suitors. Clearly something is in the air given the intensity of recent stock swings and the perpetual M&A rumors. Just last week CEO Jon Rubinstein was out giving interviews talking up the Palm turnaround narrative, while continuing to defend Palm’s performance under the current challenges.

Shares of Palm are leading the tech sector higher today, as it is up over 12% in early friday morning trading. As was the case earlier this week, another round of buyout speculation is fueling the rise once again.

This time the chatty mouths on Wall street would have you believe that Taiwan based HTC is now interested in acquiring Palm Inc. According to MarketWatch an unnamed Chinese newspaper is said to be the source. The article has some humorous quotes from analysts over the recent round of M&A chatter. HTC is not commenting on the rumor and a US based HTC spokesperson is quoted by Reuters as saying “To the best of my knowledge this is just a rumor.”

“Every day there is a different rumor about who is going to buy Palm,” said Kevin Hunt of Hapoalim Securities on Friday. “I could make a list of eight companies who could buy it. But would they buy it for more than $1 billion? I just don’t know.”

Fourtune’s Brainstorm Tech blog has posted an interview with current Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein. The interview is an interesting read for webOS users and Palm history buffs alike. The interviewer pitches out a series of direct and to the point questions on Palm’s current situation, issues and competition. Ruby provides some straightforward answers for change and is upfront about the challenges that lie ahead for Palm Inc.

F: Can you succeed being frugal when the competition is going pedal to the metal spending money and has the resources to do it?

JR: Necessity is the mother of invention, right? I mean, would I rather have a spare billion dollars to go spend on brand advertising around the world? Of course I would. But that’s not the reality. So it may take us a while, but we will work our way through this, and we’re continuing to invest very heavily in engineering on both webOS development and on new product development.

Shares of Palm Inc. stock gained 20% in trading yesterday on a rumor that China based Lenovo Group was interested in the company. The stock closed Wednesday up 77 cents to close at $4.62.

While Palm’s stock is no stranger to M&A rumors and insider trading moves, this latest bit of wall street speculation was kicked into high gear by a mention by CNBC anchor Jon “option monster” Najarian. He remarked that the play would be a “very nice cheap shot for Lenovo” and in the same sentence mentions U2’s Bono should just do the deal himself.

On the serious side, Lenovo made no official comment, however this MarketWatch article mentions that the Lenovo CEO has mentioned in recent interviews that the company is looking into making more acquisitions to build out their mobile Internet business.

Kinoma has updated their Kinoma Player EX for Palm OS devices. Kinoma Player is a popular multimedia player for the Palm Centro and Treo devices. It features excellent music and video playback capabilities as well as a built-in media guide for accessing tons of internet radio, podcasts, YouTube and many other streaming media sources. This update fixes YouTube support and is a free update for existing customers which can be obtained via the built in check for updates feature.

Kinoma Player 4 EX v.4.5.5 for Palm OS is available now for $24.99. A free trial period is included. The software is compatible with Palm OS 5 and higher.

comScore has released its U.S. Mobile subscriber market share report for February 2010. The report ranked the leading mobile original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and smartphone platforms in the U.S. according to their share of usage by current mobile subscribers age 13 and older, and reviewed the most popular activities and content accessed via the subscriber’s primary mobile phone.

The February report found Motorola to be the top handset manufacturer overall with 22.3 percent market share, while RIM led among smartphone platforms with 42.1 percent market share. Palm meanwhile held to its ~5% position, down marginally from January.

From the better late than never department comes word that Palm has dumped its ad agency Modernista. The news comes from a article out now at AdAge.

Modernista was partially responsible for the universally derided series of creepy ads the debuted around the Palm Pre launch and continued to run after an enormous amount of mostly negative backlash. An interesting comment in the adage article from an apparent insider sheds some light on the possible reasons why the spots weren’t pulled earlier.