Daily Mobile Industry Snippets!

Palm was once the leading player when it launched its popular Palm Pilot handheld device back in the 1990s. With a lot of competitors vying for a slice of the smartphone market share, Palm has almost been forgotten.  Last year, it tried to launch a phone and underlying operating system that rivaled Apple’s iPhone in elegance and ambition. The phones failed to sell. It is clear that the company is heading for spectacular failure, given its recent earnings and desperate cash position. Whatever the reasons for its failure, it’s chances of catching up again without an acquisition are slim.

Firstly, Palm does not stand out in any category. BlackBerry is known as an email and enterprise device, Android is liked for its openness and innovation, and iPhone excels in user experience and abundance of apps. That leaves Palm more closed than Android, not as cool as iPhone, and not nearly as enterprise-focused as BlackBerry. Secondly, developers are already busy with Android, iPhone OS, BlackBerry, and the upcoming Windows Phone. They don’t exactly need another operating system. Without many apps developed for Palm, users are less likely to buy it over competing products, and without a significant user base, developers are less likely to develop for WebOS.

Hence, it seems like the only way for Palm’s survival is a buyout.

Source:

http://venturebeat.com/2010/03/30/why-palms-headed-for-a-buyout-by-rim/

Daily Mobile Industry Snippets!

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd said it aims to triple smartphone shipments to more than 18 million units, as the world’s second biggest cellphone maker. Samsung wants to make a mark in the fast growing smart phone market by not just improving hardware offerings but also beefing up content, applications, services.

Samsung, which has about 20 percent of the global mobile phone market but only about 3 percent of the smartphone market, said it would aggressively promote its own open smartphone platform Bada, which has received little attention from handset vendors and developers since being launched late last year.

Source:

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6130KZ20100204?type=technologyNews

Hello everyone, today is the launch of a new section, “Fragmentos!”

Fragmentos essentially means snippets in danish!

snip-pet [snip-it]

-noun

1. a small piece snipped off; a small bit, scrap or fragment: an anthology of snippets

2. Informal. a small or insignificant person

Hence, as the name suggested, Fragmentos is going to be a daily updates short pieces of news from the mobile industry, in particular the smartphone industry.

So, do stay tuned for more!