I had to post twice today because I loved this headline so much. In a post entitled “If Everyone Likes The Palm Pre, Why So Much Hedging?” Derek Kerton of Insight Community said…
I wrote about the Pre on Techdirt after being very impressed with the phone at CES and MWC Barcelona. I wrote, "I'm not sure when the bandwagon is going to hit the trail for this device, but I'm saddling up right now." And in the intervening months, I've noted that more and more reviewers were, like me, heaping praise on the device. But there was something else: many reviewers couched the endorsement of the Pre with caveats.
I like to think one of the themes of this blog is the idea that common sense still makes sense, even in the new world tech is creating. One popular product of common sense is the phrase “you need to spend money to make money” and it’s still true.
Palm Pre may be a fantastic product, it may be better than the iPhone for many people, and that’s all fine and good. But in the end Apple has a ton of resources to throw at it should the Pre become a threat.
What does Palm and Sprint have to counter that?
Combined Palm and Sprint have a market cap of 16.08 Billion (as of my writing this). Compare that to Apple (129.06B), Microsoft (197.04B), RIM (52.39B) and Google (140.38B). If you’re a developer trying to decide which horse to bet on amongst these choices which would you choose?
People can come from behind. It’s possible. We’ve all seen movies about it. But the reason you know the stories in those movies is because they’re so rare. Mostly those who are behind stay behind.
Moreover when people do come from behind it’s usually because those in the lead let their guard down. Apple is at the top of it’s game right now and both RIM and Google are looking to meet or beat their performance (Microsoft is too if you believe Steve Ballmer but he has precious little to show for it)
Palm Pre is, by all accounts, a great product. But is it so much better than the others that it can come from behind? Sadly I doubt it.