Paul Kedrosky on Moto Buying Palm
Paul Kedrotsky thinks Motorola buying Palm is a gaffe:
[from Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed: Motorola Gives Apple a Birthday Present]Motorola is getting set to give Apple a nice mobile-market birthday present: It is supposedly buying Palm for $2-billion, which should thoroughly distract Moto around a doomed platform.
Steve should send 'em a nice note of thanks.
But what should Moto (and Nokia, LG, Samsung, Sony-Ericsson, etc.) do? Continue making the same dumb phones?
Palm may be not the same as iPhone, but its a lot better than the lookalike cells that these guys generally make. It could be something to build on, at least.
I honestly don't understand the iPhone fervour. I was at 3GSM Barcelona, and to be honest, I really wonder if Apple have done their market research.
Time will tell, but coming from the mobile side, and having more than a touch of real world experience on mobile usability, key features, market segments, etc, AND being a loyal Apple customer since 1989, AND having bought and loved every Newton, AND being one of first in Europe to get an iPod....the iPhone leaves me cold. (And as an aside, I'm a Palm user too, but I do not see the point of the Treo)
Current phones are not perfect, neither the smart nor the dumb variety, but this is not uniquely down to the stupidity and blindness of the manufacturers. It is because it is a very, very difficult task to build in all the features that customers and, especially, carriers want, and make all this work within the very tough constraints of the mobile work.
My hunch is that iPhone v1 will bomb. The Apple fanboys/grrls will buy it, but that's all.
Posted by: David Mantripp | March 22, 2007 at 12:05 AM