The folks at PhoneNews’s somehow managed to get their hands onto a somewhat complete slide set depicting Sprint’s near-term handset plans.
While the majority of the slides was related to Brew-powered handsets and all kinds of Windows Mobile gear, the Pre also popped up on one slide:
As of now, no further information is available – stay tuned!
Palm’s stock has been on an insane hike recently: and it looks like the rally will continue. The boys in Orange just got their stock upgraded by RBC Capital…the relevant bits are below:
…
Palm (PALM) shares received a boost this morning from RBC Capital analyst Mike Abramsky, who raised his rating on the stock to Outperform from Sector Perform.
…
Abramsky says there is room in the smartphone market for Palm to compete with Apple (AAPL) and Research In Motion (RIMM). “Palm is developed end-to-end smartphone software and hardware, providing a superior user experience, which we believe can offer a compelling alternative to iPhone,” … He contends the company already has plans for additional Web OS based devices beyond the Pre.
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Abramsky now expects Palm to sell 2.6 million Web OS-based handsets in the May 2010 fiscal year, up from 2.2 million; he sees the total jumping to 4.1 million in FY 2011.
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Further information can be had at barron’s.com!
Palm was traditionally known for its crappy web browsers: ever since the Palm Tungsten T, their high-powered hardware was crippled by Web Pro or Blazer (because Palm refused to pay Opera for a native PalmOS version of the browser).
Fortunately, it looks like the boys learned their lesson: jkontherun reports that the web browser found in the Pre is blazingly fast:
The Pre had fully rendered the complex site in around 8 seconds. Same site on my iPhone? About 30 seconds. Obviously, I don’t know if the Palm Pre Webkit browser caches web pages from prior usage. I know my iPhone doesn’t, so even if this page load speed was based on cache, it’s still a function not offered on my iPhone. Again, I saw this in real-time. Hit the Big12 site on your device and see how long it takes to render and use. Heck, why not leave a comment with the platform you used as well as the browser?
A video showing the relevant section can be seen at the URL below:
http://jkontherun.com/2009/03/12/palm-pre-webcast-tidbit-browser-nearly-4x-faster/
The folks at Gartner’s have recently posted a document containing all kinds of interesting excerpts from their report on mobile device market shares.
Key points are as follows:
Finally, here’s the full report for your enjoyment:
Gartner Says Worldwide Smartphone Sales Reached Its Lowest Growth Rate With 3.7 Per Cent Increase in Fourth Quarter of 2008
In the fourth quarter of 2008, worldwide sales of smartphones to end users reached 38.1 million units, an increase of 3.7 per cent on the fourth quarter of 2007, according to Gartner, Inc. Global sales of smartphones for 2008 reached 139.3 million devices, up 13.9 per cent compared with 2007.
“After a strong third quarter with new product introductions, sequential growth slowed down again in the fourth quarter as fewer compelling new products and the worsened economic climate continued to make data plans associated with smartphones out of reach for most consumers,“ said Roberta Cozza, research director at Gartner. “In general in 2008, the focus from vendors and operators on increasing their smartphone portfolios remained very strong. Samsung, RIM, HTC and Apple saw their volumes and share increase during 2008 (see Table 2), thanks to their ability to offer compelling device experiences and touch interfaces.”
As a proportion of all mobile device sales, smartphones remained stable at 12 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2008, from 11 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2007. Samsung entered the top five vendors ranking for the first time (see Table 1), replacing Sharp. RIM recorded an increase in sales both sequentially and year-over-year, while Nokia’s volumes continued to fall.
Table 1
Worldwide: Smartphone Sales to End Users by Vendor, 4Q08 (Thousands of Units)
Company
4Q08 Sales
Market Share 4Q08 (%)
4Q07 Sales
Market Share 4Q07 (%)
4Q07-4Q08 Growth (%)
Nokia
15,561.7
40.8
18,703.3
50.9
-16.8
Research In Motion
7,442.6
19.5
4,024.7
10.9
84.9
Apple
4,079.4
10.7
1,928.3
5.2
111.6
HTC
1,631.7
4.3
1,361.1
3.7
19.9
Samsung
1,598.2
4.2
671.5
1.8
138.0
Others
7,829.7
20.5
10,077.3
27.4
-22.3
Total
38,143.3
100.0
36,766.1
100.0
3.7
Note: Under the name HTC, Gartner counts only the company’s own-branded devices. The devices that HTC designs for mobile operators are shown separately under the operators’ names in these statistics.
Source: Gartner (March 2009)Nokia maintained its No. 1 position, but in the fourth quarter of 2008 its smartphone sales declined by 16.8 per cent year-on-year. This also contributed to the overall weakness of the global smartphone segment in 4Q08, as the company commanded 40.8 per cent of the market. Nokia’s entry-level smartphone range will continue to offer good value for the money, but Nokia remains more exposed to pressure from competition in the higher end of the consumer smartphone market as the Nseries loses its appeal.
Apple’s initial sell-through dropped significantly as sales fell during the fourth quarter. Nevertheless, Apple maintained its third position in the global rankings. Apple built an inventory of about two million iPhone units in the third quarter of 2008 which did not reduce significantly in the fourth quarter. With Apple’s sequential decline, volumes were driven by new product introductions such as the RIM Storm, the T-Mobile G1 (the first product based on Google’s Android platform), and strong performance from Samsung’s touchscreen products. HTC had a very strong quarter with record sales of its HTC-branded devices and operator-branded devices.
Table 2
Worldwide: Smartphone Sales to End Users by Vendor, 2008 (Thousands of Units)
Company
2008 Sales
Market Share
2008 (%)
2007 Sales
Market Share 2007 (%)
Growth
2007-2008 (%)Nokia
60,920.5
43.7
60,465.0
49.4
0.8
Research In Motion
23,149.0
16.6
11,767.7
9.6
96.7
Apple
11,417.5
8.2
3,302.6
2.7
245.7
HTC
5,895.4
4.2
3,718.5
3.0
58.5
Sharp
5,234.2
3.8
6,885.3
5.6
-24.0
Others
32,671.4
23.5
36,176.6
29.6
-9.7
Total
139,287.9
100.0
122,315.6
100.0
13.9
Note: For HTC we only count the company’s own-branded devices. The devices that HTC designs and which have the operator’s brand are given separately under the operator’s name in our statistics.
Source: Gartner (March 2009)In the smartphone operating system (OS) market, Symbian’s share of the global market decreased to 47.1 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2008, down from its 2007 share of 62.3 per cent (see Table 3). Pressure from new platforms entering the consumer space, the continued decline of Nokia’s smartphone sales and the weakness of the Japanese mobile device market have negatively affected Symbian’s share. Meanwhile, RIM successfully grew its year-on-year share of the global smartphone market to 19.5 per cent from 10.9 per cent. Gartner estimated that Android smartphones accounted for 20 per cent of total Linux sales in the fourth quarter of 2008.
In the fourth quarter of 2008, Microsoft’s share of the global smartphone market improved sequentially, with unit sales up 16 per cent over 3Q08. This was mainly driven by the popularity of Samsung Omnia and touchscreen products from HTC. Sales of Linux-based smartphones were up by 19 per cent year-over-year, mainly through Android-based smartphones being available through T-Mobile during the fourth quarter of 2008.
Table 3
Worldwide: Smartphone Sales to End Users by Operating System, 4Q08 (Thousands of Units)
Company
4Q08 Sales
Market Share
4Q08 (%)
4Q07 Sales
Market Share 4Q07 (%)
Growth
4Q07-4Q08 (%)Symbian
17,949.1
47.1
22,902.5
62.3
-21.6
Research In Motion
7,442.6
19.5
4,024.7
10.9
84.9
Microsoft Windows Mobile
4,713.9
12.4
4,374.4
11.9
7.8
Mac OS X
4,079.4
10.7
1,928.3
5.2
111.6
Linux
3,194.9
8.4
2,675.9
7.3
19.4
Palm OS
326.5
0.9
449.1
1.2
-27.3
Other OSs
436.9
1.1
411.3
1.1
6.2
Total
38,143.3
100.0
36,766.1
100.0
3.7
Note: The “Other OSs” category includes sales of Sharp Sidekick devices based on the Danger platform.
Source: Gartner (March 2009)Table 4
Worldwide: Smartphone Sales to End Users by Operating System, 2008 (Thousands of Units)
Company
2008 Sales
Market Share
2008 (%)
2007 Sales
Market Share 2007 (%)
Growth
2007-2008 (%)Symbian
72,933.5
52.4
77,684.0
63.5
-6.1
Research In Motion
23,149.0
16.6
11,767.7
9.6
96.7
Microsoft Windows Mobile
16,498.1
11.8
14,698.0
12.0
12.2
Mac OS X
11,417.5
8.2
3,302.6
2.7
245.7
Linux
11,262.9
8.1
11,756.7
9.6
-4.2
Palm OS
2,507.2
1.8
1,762.7
1.4
42.2
Other OSs
1,519.7
1.1
1,344.0
1.1
13.1
Total
139,287.9
100.0
122,315.6
100.0
13.9
Note: The “Other OSs” category includes sales of Sharp Sidekick devices based on the Danger platform.
Source: Gartner (March 2009)On a regional level, the North American smartphone market continued to grow, despite the larger economic problems. Smartphones account for roughly 20 per cent of sales in this region, a dramatic increase over the past year. Smartphone sales in North America grew 69 per cent in 2008. While sales will grow at a slower pace, the market will be driven by support from operators in the region aggressively pushing data plans. Smartphones will also see increased competition from full-featured enhanced phones that may offer a full qwerty keyboard. These devices offer much of the functionality of a smartphone, but at a lower price.
Smartphone sales in Asia/Pacific recorded a 2.3 per cent sequential growth, reaching 7.5 million unit sales, even though overall mobile device sales dropped by 9.2 per cent. The drop in overall sales was attributable to weak consumer confidence, but sales of high-end devices remained good, leading to positive sequential growth for smartphones. Market leader Nokia lost market share marginally by 2 per cent to Apple. Others that gained in the region were RIM and Samsung. Touch-based devices continued to attract consumers in this segment.
Smartphone sales in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) were up by only 2 per cent in 4Q08 compared with the same period last year. Despite replacement purchases slowing down in Western Europe, smartphone sales still recorded a 9.6 per cent increase in the region. Samsung was the main contributor to the growth in Europe thanks to the success of its Omnia touchscreen smartphone. Samsung’s share nearly tripled during the fourth quarter of 2008 and the strong push of its touchscreen offerings in EMEA put pressure on HTC.
Ms Cozza concluded: “In 2009, mobile platforms will be a major battleground as the associated user experience and role of the ecosystem grow in importance.”
Additional information is available in the Gartner report “Market Share: Smartphones, Worldwide, 4Q08 and 2008″. The report is on Gartner’s website at http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?ref=g_search&id=908313&subref=simplesearch.
Unfortunately, the CPU of my MSI Wind U100 is not as fast as the one found in desktop systems…which has made keeping multiple tabs open in FireFox a major chore due to the browser’s weak JavaScript engine. However, this has changed significantly in the latest publicly-released betas: this post is written with beta 2 of FireFox 3.1, which works flawlessly and is very very fast.
The boys have just released yet another beta, which is said to improve the following:
Firefox 3.1 Beta 3 is based on the Gecko 1.9.1 rendering platform, which has been under development for the past 9 months. Firefox 3.1 is an incremental release on the previous version with significant changes to improve web compatibility, performance, and ease of use:
* This beta is now available in 64 languages – get your local version.
* Improved the new Private Browsing Mode.
* Improvements to web worker thread support.
* Improved performance and stability with the new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine.
* New native JSON support.
* Improvements to the Gecko layout engine, including speculative parsing for faster content rendering.
* Support for new web technologies such as the video and audio elements, the W3C Geolocation API, JavaScript query selectors, CSS 2.1 and 3 properties, SVG transforms and offline applications.
Further information can be had here:
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/3.1b3/releasenotes/
The quote below hits us via BrightHand’s, who have picked it up from a recent webinar:
…
Palm acknowledged this again, saying that games for the Pre will initially be relatively simple, web-centric ones, such as Sudoku.But Matt Crowley, Product Line Manager at Palm, said something that could raise hopes that this situation will change in the future. When talking on this subject, he specifically said that webOS 1.0 will not support 3G games. This suggests — but comes nowhere close to a promise — that later versions of this operating system will allow developers to create high-end games.
…
As of now, no further information is available – stay tuned!
The EU commission has undertaken quite a few regulatory actions over the last year: according to The Unwired View, a further change could be upcoming in the near future!
First of all, roaming tariffs will be reduced to €0.40 for outgoing and to €0.16 for incoming calls. Billing will be by the second. SMS users will be happy about a 11cent/sms cap (all prices without VAT).
People into data also get some love: a price cap of 50 cents per megabyte (billing per KB) and a fixed limit will ensure that travelers don’t get too many nasty surprises.
As of this writing, the EU Parliament has not approved the steps outlined above. But: we should know more by July 2010…
Palm OS handhelds were notable for the strong community which formed around them: the largest of the so-called Palm User Groups (PUG for short) were able to attract almost 100 members in their heyday.
Unfortunately, it looks like the end of the traditional Palm OS will also bring an end to Palm User Groups – the picture on the left side was made at the farewell/dissolution meeting of the Hong Kong Palm User Group.
As of now, nobody knows if the group will continue or will end forever – however, further images of the meeting can be found at the following URL’s (no English translation as of this writing):
http://www.hkpug.org/discuz/viewthread.php?tid=2141
http://www.hkpug.org/discuz/viewthread.php?tid=2142
Dr. Schaffer’s Mobile Computing facility at the Austrian FH Hagenberg has produced quite a few really amazing projects (think Shaker Racer) in the last years; the knowledge of their faculty staff is top-notch and contains loads of Forum Nokia champions. Cutting a long story short: the price (free) is more than right – I am there for about 6 months now and am happy overall.
In case anyone of you feels like adding a Bachelor of Science in Mobile Computing to your business card, definitely consider these boys. As tuition is free and living in Linz is dirt cheap (900E/month max), interested German-speakers are well advised to visit their open-house day to find out more about how to get great education for a very low price…which is held tomorrow:
FH Hagenberg Campus
Softwarepark 11
4232 Hagenberg/Austria
Open: 9h to 18h local time
Yours truly will be around photographing stuff – if anyone of you happens to drop by, you should have no issues tracking me down! I’d appreciate seeing some of you there…
Palm and Sprint have had an excellent relationship ever since the first Treo…which means that the choice of Sprint as launch partner for the Pre was an absolute no-brainer. When it comes to Europe, things are less clear: Palm has been struggling to find a carrier partner willing to sell its non-Windows-Mobile products for a long time.
This seems to have changed with the Palm Pre, which will be sold by Telefonica according to a Spanish newspaper (translation via Google):
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The telecommunications operator has closed an agreement with Palm, the company that popularized the PDA, to market its latest exclusive terminal fetish Palm Pre, the first multitáctil screen and advanced navigation functionality via the Internet, which has been described as antiiPhone of the manufacturer.For marketing, the operator will require the hiring of its customers a flat rate of data, based on the gradual subsidy expenditure committed by subscribers.This is the same model used to sell the iPhone, which is developing in the high-end smartphones.
…
Moreover, according to sources familiar with the agreements, the British subsidiary of Telefonica, O2, will market the new terminal exclusively in the UK, while Movistar also sold in Latin America.
…
I personally think that Telefonica is an excellent choice for Palm: the carrier has a very strong market penetration and didn’t have too many exclusives recently (it lost the BlackBerry Storm to Vodafone). Stay tuned!
Palm’s now-ancient Bluetooth-only PDAs once created a profitable market niche for so-called Bluetooth routers which connected these handhelds to a LAN. Even though this still is an excellent idea (Bluetooth needs a lot less power), the cheapness of WiFi has eliminated Bluetooth routers almost completely.
Almost completely…but a small company called bluegiga resists:
Their product is a rather expensive (250USD) but very small Bluetooth router:
But: this is not an ordinary Bluetooth router. Instead, it contains a freely programmable microprocessor running an embedded Linux OS. This allows customers to create intelligent routers which provide services to their clients without a dedicated server…
Bluegiga currently sells a few thousand units a year – hit the link below for further info:
http://www.bluegiga.com/Bluetooth_access_server_products
The latest bit of Palm-related news hits us via various news sources – enjoy the list below:
Palm plans recapitalization
Palm’s dealings with Elevation Partners have granted the latter the right to remarket shares – which they have just done according to CNET:
…
The handheld device maker, depending on market conditions, plans to offer 18.5 million shares in a secondary offering between now and March 31, a Palm spokeswoman said.
Proceeds from the sale will be used to repay $49 million to its investor Elevation Partners, with the remainder going toward working capital for the launch of the Pre and future product development.
…
10 clarifications re McNamee interview
Elevation Partners McNamee got a bit too talkative in a recent BloomBerg interview – this has made some lawyers at Palm worried (as investors could theoretically hold the company accountable for the statements) and led to them posting a clarification.
The full text can be had here, the most important pieces are below:
For purposes of clarification, it should be noted that:
5. With respect to the statements in the tenth paragraph of the transcript that the Palm Pre is “going to be a million times – well, not a million times – several times faster” than Apple, Inc.’s iPhone products and is “going to run rings around them on the web,” the Palm Pre is still under development and it is premature to state the speed at which the device accesses the web or the relative speed of the Palm Pre compared to the smartphone products of competitors.6. With respect to the statements in the twelfth paragraph of the transcript that “there are aspects of the Pre that are unlike any phone you’ve every seen before,” “the Pre is the first one that is the next generation” and “the result is it does a lot of things the others guys don’t do,” the Palm Pre is designed to be the first phone based on the Palm webOS™ platform and as a result will have different operating characteristics and features than other phones, however; the Palm Pre is still under development and it is premature to compare its full functionality with that of other phones.
8. The statement in the second paragraph of the article that “not one” person who bought an Apple, Inc. iPhone on the first shipment date “will still be using an iPhone a month” after the two-year anniversary of that day is an exaggerated prediction of consumer behavior pattern and is withdrawn.
9. With respect to the statements in the second to last paragraph of the article that “the underlying technology for Research In Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry is about 13 years old, while the technology behind the iPhone goes back almost nine years,” estimating one specific age for the many technology components underlying any mobile phone is inherently imprecise and these statements are withdrawn.
10. With respect to the implications in the second to last and last paragraphs of the article that Palm’s new operating system will give it an edge over competitors that “are going to run out of gas way before” Palm, estimations of the relative useful lifespan of smartphone operating systems are conjecture, unverifiable at this time, and age is not necessarily predictive of their relative long-term success.
Neither of these two announcements is too significant for the Palm economy as whole – but you nevertheless heard about it here…
Dear Readers,
the Tamoggemon Content network is powered by a team of editors working 24/7 to ensure that you, dear readers, always receive the best and most current information on all things somewhat related to mobile computing. We brave nights, early mornings, low temperatures and cops to bring you the latest bit of news to your desktops…but mistakes unfortunately happen every now and then.
Our latest slip-up is a very embarrassing one which involved me misinterpreting a news story from another site due to tiredness – I am fully aware that this should not happen, and am very sorry!
Please rest assured that all of us work all the time to make sure that our information is current and accurate all the time: unfortunately, mistakes do happen…
I can do little more than ask you all for forgiveness and thank you all for the torrent of emails and comments!
Yours
Tam Hanna and the Tamoggemon Content team
Image: abc texte / Dr. D. M. Kohrs
The information below has been retracted. it is to be considered false and void!
Please accept our apologies and refer to this post for further information!
Simon Pfundstein will go batshit when he sees this leak from Engadget’s – looks like the March 15th release date for Sprint’s version of the Palm Pre really is true:
![rumor [RETRACTED]Palm Pre: hits stores March 15th](http://tamss60.tamoggemon.com/contents/2009/March/thaattrumor/rumor.jpg "[RETRACTED]Palm Pre: hits stores March 15th")
7 days to go…
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