CES: Palm speaks out about its quest to reinvent itself » VentureBeat

January 9, 2009 by chuq · Comments
Filed under: The Online Life 

CES: Palm speaks out about its quest to reinvent itself » VentureBeat:


As Palm introduced the new Palm Pre phone and the Palm Web OS platform today at the CES conference in Las Vegas, its executives told the story of how they hatched the plot to save the company.

Jon Rubinstein (left), the former Apple executive who spearheaded the iPod development, had retired from Apple and was living at a beachside home in Mexico. A couple of years ago, he got a call from both Roger McNamee and Fred Anderson of Elevation Partners.

Most people probably won’t recognize the name of Fred Anderson, but he was CFO of Apple during the turnaround, and a key component in making the company succeed when Steve came back. Steve had the vision, Fred had the purse strings, and both were really needed to make Apple what it is today. He really impressed me at Apple.

So did Rubenstein. And the new Palm WebOS platform looks interesting, as does Pre.

Palm was one of those companies, like Yahoo, that really looked like their time had passed and they were going to fade to black. If Carol Bartz goes in at Yahoo, that changes things there.

And here? With Rubenstein working on it, and with Fred Anderson involved, the new Palm offerings show that Palm may well find a way to make it happen again.

It can happen– after all, Apple did it. Palm’s announcements at CES intrigue me. Now, it’s about implementation and execution — and Palm has a team that can make that happen. Will it? We’ll see.

Will Yahoo be the next Apple? Palm? both? Neither? time will tell, especially in this market, but all of a sudden, two companies I think many of us wrote off seem to be making a strong run at a second run at the brass ring.

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  • (comment moved from old blog)

    David Emery

    Palm in its early days seemed to me (as a consumer) to have that same sense of 'excellence' that marked Apple, including a commitment to user-focused design. Like Apple under Scully, Palm lost its way, including producing stuff that had a decreasing user experience (my last Palm was nowhere near as well designed or easy to use as my first Palm.)

    Additionally, Palm had a devoted software aftermarket, which helped make the platform.

    I sure hope Palm does return. There's room for more than just Apple in the "It Just Works" department :-)

    dave
  • (comment moved from old blog)

    Steven Fisher, Jan 10, 2009

    Personally, I've never been prepared to write off Palm. They always seemed like they had the team to handle it, if they weren't lead by idiots and trapped in stupid business decisions.

    The part of ACCESS that was PalmSource will never amount to anything, though.
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