Bell Mobility in Canada is now giving the Palm Pre away when customers sign up for a new contract. In its third major price drop since launching the handset late last August.
The new price points gives the Palm Pre away for essentially nothing with a three year contract agreement, while 2 year commitments will put it in your mitts for $99 CAD. The no contract option remains unchanged at $599.
For the third year in a row, PalmInfocenter has been awarded the best Palm website/blog in the yearly PalmAddict Reader Awards. PIC received the most votes in the categories for best Palm website and smartphone resource which included over 15 other Palm and mobile focused sites. In total over 62,000 votes were cast in PalmAddicts yearlong informal reader survey.
I’d like to send a big thank you to the kind crew at PalmAddicts and to everyone who participated. This award would not be possible without our wonderful readers and the ever adept PIC writing staff namely Tim Carroll and Kris Keilhack, without whose help this accolade would not be possible.
For the third year in a row, PalmInfocenter has been awarded the best Palm website/blog in the yearly PalmAddict Reader Awards. PIC received the most votes in the categories for best Palm website and smartphone resource which included over 15 other Palm and mobile focused sites. In total over 62,000 votes were cast in PalmAddicts yearlong informal reader survey.
I’d like to send a big thank you to the kind crew at PalmAddicts and to everyone who participated. This award would not be possible without our wonderful readers and the ever adept PIC writing staff namely Tim Carroll and Kris Keilhack, without whose help this accolade would not be possible.
Palm Inc. and Verizon announced today that Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus will be on store shelves and ready for purchase on Monday, Jan. 25. The Palm Pre Plus will cost $149.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate, and Palm Pixi Plus will cost $99.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate, each with a new two-year customer agreement. Verizon customters who buy a Palm Pre Plus or a Palm Pixi Plus can get a Palm Pixi Plus free after a mail-in rebate through Feb. 14.
Both phones will be offered with Verizon’s newly revised service plans. Verizon Wireless Nationwide Talk plans begin at $39.99 monthly access and Nationwide Talk & Text Plans begin at $59.99 monthly access. Nationwide Unlimited Talk Plans and Nationwide Unlimited Talk & Text Plans are available at $69.99 and $89.99 monthly access, respectively. Data plan options will be required as well starting at $29.99 a month.
In an interview at CES last week Palm’s CEO made some eye raising remarks about his former employer that have caused more than a few industry watchers to do a double take. When asked directly about how Palm viewed the competition with Apple, Jon Rubinstein told WSJ’s Kara Swisher that he “doesn’t pay much attention to Apple” and he went on to further proclaim “I don’t have an iPhone. Actually, I’ve never used one.”
Ruby’s frank subterfuge on Apple is obviously getting the most play in the blogosphere, however he did make some other comments that reflect his current thinking on the status of Palm Inc., webOS and their overall progress. In the thirty minute interview he also talks about the plan for Palm’s resurgence and the foundations they have built with webOS. He muses about how the past two year period has been all about the company’s transition, while he looks ahead at this year as the transformational one.
Palm Inc. announced today that Verizon Wireless will be getting updated models of the Palm Pre and Pixi. Announced today at Palm’s CES Event, Verizon is set to exclusively offer the Palm Pre Plus and the Palm Pixi Plus on Monday, January 25th.
The Palm Pre Plus adds a refreshed design along with twice the amount of storage space (16GB) and built in touchstone support. The Pixi Plus will be enhanced with built in WiFi as well as an integrated touchstone cover. Both models will also support Palm’s new WiFi router functionality via the Palm mobile hotspot application.
Palm, Inc. today introduced several graphics-intensive 3D game titles for webOS, from leading game developers EA Mobile; Gameloft; Glu Mobile; and Laminar Research. Demonstrated at Palm’s CES event, the games will be available today in the Palm App Catalog for Palm Pre customers.
“We are very excited about the potential of webOS as a platform for mobile 3D gaming,” said Katie Mitic, senior vice president, Product Marketing, Palm, Inc. “This is a key application category, and we’ve worked closely with some of the leading game developers to deliver a great game experience for our customers.”
The Palm webOS developer program is now open, Palm, Inc. said today. Any developer can now go to the Palm Developer Center, sign up, and start developing and distributing applications for webOS devices. Palm showcased its developer program and tools at CES today, and announced a $1 million developer Hot Apps bonus program for the rapidly growing Palm webOS developer community.
“We’re thrilled to open the doors of a program that offers mobile developers unparalleled freedom and choice in how they distribute and market applications,” said Katie Mitic, senior vice president, Product Marketing, Palm, Inc. “The combination of our highly accessible web-based platform, groundbreaking integration opportunities and open, flexible distribution program makes Palm webOS the best place for developers to create the next generation of innovative mobile applications.”
Engadget is reporting that AT&T Mobility President and CEO Ralph de la Vega made some remarks about webOS at a AT&T developer summit this morning.
Mr. de la Vega is reported to have said that two webOS devices will come to AT&T sometime during the first half of 2010. The developer conference is going on today and that is all that little snippet of a quote is all that is being reported at the moment.
The Palm Pre has been shanzai’d again, this time under the Cool K07 moniker. A site called Solomobi is now selling the Sunnyvale inspired model for a cool $128 credits.
Cool’s take includes a 2.8 inch 320 x 240 pixel touchscreen, ~20MB of memory with T-Flash expansion, 2 cameras, Bluetooth, Analog TV & FM radio and GPRS connectivity all with a slide out QWERT full keyboard. Software wise it is said to offer Java functions and its powered by some kind of gravity inducer? Lookout for the “handshaking function” which alters the wallpaper when shaken.
A couple more pics are posted after the break.
Shortly before the holidays, Palm filled a 8-K regulatory form with the SEC that announced that Rajiv Dutta has resigned from Palm’s board of directors. Mr. Dutta recently joined Elevation Partners as a Managing Director and will step down effective Feb 25, 2010.
Mr. Dutta was nominated for the Palm board post by Elevation Partners. He had a brief tenure joining only last February taking over Donna Dubinsky’s seat. In his new role, Mr. Dutta will work with Elevation’s five co-founders and the rest of the Elevation team to evaluate investment opportunities, advise the senior management of Elevation’s portfolio companies, and drive the overall strategy of the firm.
PhoneFavs has been recently optimized for next generation smartphones and mobile devices. The mobile web portal, bookmarking service and mobile site directory combines a plethora of mobile tools and services to enhance mobile surfing sessions.
PhoneFavs has been refreshed with improved touchscreen support and larger smartphone displays in mind. Users can find many bookmarking improvements such as the ability to display more links per page, search within and easily share and shorten links in a mobile friendly format. The site also continues to add new mobile services such as the new automatic mobile weather feature, which can display up to the minute weather data worldwide without having to manually enter a location.
Palm has released the first public beta of its innovative new development tool for webOS. Called Project Ares, this new webOS development environment runs completely in a desktop browser. Its aim is to simplify and lower the entry barrier for developing webOS applications by allowing developers to code, debug and build webOS apps within a standard web browser.
The web-hosted development environment features an array of developer tools including a drag-and-drop interface builder, code editor, visual javascript debugger, log viewer, framework enhancements, single click deployment on a device or emulator and built in SVN/Mecurial version source control. With this set of features interested developers can simply log in and upload a project or build a new one from scratch. Projects can be easily be uploaded and downloaded for what Palm describes as a seamless “desktop/cloud workflow.”
During this evening’s quarterly investor conference call, Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein briefly talked about the next version of webOS and some of Palm’s plans for CES. Mr. Rubinstein stated that Palm Inc. would be showcasing webOS v1.3.5 during the companies upcoming media event at CES. We can gather from the call script that the event will at least include a preview of 1.3.5, a focus on Palm’s developer program efforts as well as some potential new carrier announcements.
Palm’s CEO also disclosed a few details about what webOS 1.3.5 would encompass. The bullet points he mentioned reveal the new release will include improved battery life, better overall device and wifi performance, a removal of the app download storage limit and a speed boost for Pixi users.
Palm, Inc. today reported that total revenues in the second quarter of fiscal year 2010, ended Nov. 27, 2009, were $78.1 million. Gross profit was $5.5 million, and gross margin was 7.0 percent. These results include the effects of subscription accounting applied to Palm webOS products as required by GAAP. In accordance with this methodology, revenues and direct cost of revenues for Palm webOS products (currently Palm Pre and Palm Pixi smartphones) are deferred and recognized over the products’ estimated economic lives.
“We are continuing to execute strongly against our long-term strategy with the delivery of Palm Pixi, the new carrier launches completed this quarter, and the upcoming opening of Palm’s full developer program,” said Jon Rubinstein, Palm’s chairman and chief executive officer. “We’re still in the early stages of a long race, and we’re energized by the opportunity to compete in this exciting market. We remain confident that Palm’s innovative product design capabilities, integrated cloud services and the differentiated and delightful Palm webOS experience will provide the foundation for our sustained success.”
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PhoneArena has published a screen grab reportedly showing an online training session for Palm and webOS for Verizon. According to the tipster this is one element of Verizon’s campaign to get its employes up to speed on Palm’s latest operating system. Combined with all the previous rumors, fcc docs and executive statements, this adds another bit of concrete info to Verizon’s plan to offer a webOS device next year.
The leaked screenshot shows what appears to be the intro slide to a 20 minute online training session. Entitled “Why Palm? What is webOS?” the course aims to “re-introduce Palm and describes the new webOS platform.” The training dates are listed as 12/15/09 through 1/4/2010.
Fortune has an article out this morning discussing the private investment outfits current state of affairs. The editorial paints a dim picture of Elevations track record to date with a focus on the firms $460 million dollar investment in Palm Inc. The article also points out the posibility that Elevation is considering raising a new fund, while at the same time hinting that they may need to force a sale of Palm to a bigger player.
[…] the fate of Elevation’s first fund rests almost solely on one investment, its $460-million stake in beleaguered smartphone maker Palm (PALM). That investment is barely in the money for Elevation. It’s worth about $500 million currently.Elevation is demonstrably in for the long term: It chose not to sell late last year when the stock peaked around $18, compared to Tuesday’s close of $11.65. Palm recently raised $500 million in a stock offering, so its near term is secure.
Palm Inc. has begun to send out email invitations to the media for a company hosted event. The invitation only event will be held on Thursday, January 7th at 11am Pacific, coinciding with the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Much like last year’s event which showcased the debut of webOS and the Palm Pre, the event will be held in the Venetian Hotel. The invite was delivered early this afternoon via a plain bright orange rectangular email that states:
Please join us at CES.
to see and hear what’s new from Palm.
Google has covertly released a significant update to the built in Google Maps application on webOS devices. While there has been no public announcement of yet, the new version number is reported as v6.7 and features a number of useful refinements.
Findings so far include: improved map loading, rendering and scrolling speed, more granular map details with sliceable location listings, more street level traffic detail, a new help menu and better support for selected mass transit systems. These new features are baked into your device right now, as the program pulls a majority of its content and interface from the web.
