Peter Burrows at BizWeek has some hot news about Palm’s new OS, Nova. The company hopes to fit their new system in the gap between the BlackBerry and the iPhone (good luck – Microsoft has been trying to do that all year) and they are looking to grab 2% of the middle-range market shere, the range that Google/Android is also gunning for.
“If they can’t show me a large, active audience, I’m not going to be interested,” says Jeff Holden, CEO of Web 2.0 company Pelago, maker of a social networking tool for the iPhone. “At this point in the game, you’re toast unless you have something completely unbelievable.”
Not a lot of specs available right now but it should be available by Q2 2009 and the company hired 150 engineers to work on the new system. Dales are down 50%, Palm has laid off 10% of their workforce. Analysts are bullish, though.
“Palm going to zero would be bad for me as an analyst, but it’s not going to hurt T. Rowe Price,” Eiswert says. “But if it works, the upside is tremendous.”
The key word in that sentence is, obviously, “if.”
Incidentally, Palm, “Nova?” Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
nova cars didn’t sell in latin america. Naming a car “No go” for latin america didn’t make sense. I wonder if this OS will be a “No go” for palm before they close up shop.
gool luck palm your going to need it.
Urban Legand – http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/nova.asp
Cool to see one of the fastest Nova’s around on here, Artis Houston’s 275 Drag Radial Car.
Nice page. Although cautions are still needed for brand names that may translate into insults in foreign languages.
Awesome SS.
Palm just never seems to get it. They spend tons of time and cash on these big secret mega announcements, rather than actually seeing what people want. I should put money on whether anyone even cares what palm has to say at CES.
Pinto is a much better name.
http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1658545_1658498_1657866,00.html
Why?
I just “converted” from my PALM addiction, and I’ve been “clean” since I bought my new BB Curve.
Just a quick note: Do not underestimate PALM. They just hired 150 employees. And the whole company, every one of the now 163 employees working there are commited. “Nova” will do to the mobile phone market what “Gigli” did to the movie industry, but not as good as MS “Bob”
The Cuban Ministry of Communications already has an order for 37 new Palm Nova. That’s all the devices their current infrastructure can support. They tried to use an iPhone in Havana, and it brough down all wireless, landlines, water, electricity and medical services in the island. The power of just one iPhone is amazing!
more ppl doesn’t directly mean better product.
I once named a project Nova… bad idea for naming a car, as well as any startup project. “No va” in espanol means “No Go”
And, if you manage to get past that and your startup grows to become popular, it may become a Supernova:
A supernova is a cataclysmic explosion caused when a star exhausts its fuel and ends its life
Good luck with that… the forces are against you!
I don’t want your Chevrolet – I don’t want your Chevrolet,
I don’t want nothing in the world you got, you can’t do nothin’ for me,
Can’t do nothin’ for me.
It’s too bad Palm doesn’t understand where the actually fit in and shoot for people who want a reliable, serious business tool. Blackberry devices break far to often and iPhone is only available on one carrier…which is just ridiculous. I trust and enjoy my Palm Treo and I know there are others like me out there.
It’s highly unlikely that Nova will be able to turn Palm around. They have already lost the battle in this space. I have just made a blog post about this: http://www.skratchboard.com/?p=155.
What is a Dale?
At the PALM of the hand if something go’s NOVA would you not get severely burned. LOL
There is still high hopes from those who use the palm. The platform seems to have some simplistic interface that users like.
Although it misses out from the rest of the market some idea that nova wishes to tackle I hope will succeed such as.
Smarter data about you. I wont call it a.i but if that is the magic trick then show me more of that stuff so that I could build my own things around that.
I’m certainly not convinced about the ”we are in between the iphone and rimm ” That just like saying we do not stand out from the rest we lack BALLz.
Phone hardware has changed very much. software is key but small hardware accelerators and programmable(gpu) devices brings the device up to speed thats why most of them are battery consuming but the users love those features because the phone does not let you wait.