Sprint
As iPhone contracts expire, Sprint and Palm wait with open arms
By Chris Gaylord | 06.26.09
Early adopters, Sprint is gunning for you.
The company unveiled an advertisement today that targets a very specific demographic: those who bought an iPhone in June 2007. The ad, posted on Facebook this morning, seems to hearken back to the ’80s Sega commercial “Genesis does what Nintendon’t.”
The Palm Pre does things the iPhone can’t. Run multiple applications at the same time with real-time updates and even save $1200 over two years. It’s the perfect time to join the Now Network, America’s most trusted 3G network, bringing you the first and only 4G network from a national carrier.
The ad lands just as the original crop of iPhone owners reach the end of their two-year contracts. What better time to ditch AT&T, argued Roger McNamee, whose investment firm reinvigorated Palm several years back.
June 29, 2009, is the two-year anniversary of the first shipment of the iPhone. Not one of those people will still be using an iPhone a month later. Think about it — if you bought the first iPhone, you bought it because you wanted the coolest product on the market. Your two-year contract has just expired. Look around. Tell me what they’re going to buy.
To be fair, a week after that March interview with Bloomberg, Palm said that McNamee’s statement was an “exaggerated prediction of consumer behavior pattern and is withdrawn.” Recantation or no, the tactic is back.
By the numbers
With the launch of the iPhone 3GS, Apple sold one million iPhones last weekend. Pre’s opening weekend saw 50,000 sales, and an additional 100,000 this month. It’s hard to predict if closeted Pre fans are waiting patiently for their contracts to expire before switching to Sprint.
However, Wall Street feels confident. Palm’s share price jumped 16 percent today after the company reported its results for the latest quarter. The ticker closed at $16.22 today, the highest it’s been since Oct. 2007, when a dividend payment depressed the stock value. Palm had trouble buoying its stock, until it unveiled the Pre this January.
The Wall Street Journal reports that:
The exuberance among investors puzzled some analysts, who found little in Palm’s results to give them a handle on the company’s prospects. The company just introduced its first phone with a new operating system that will make or break Palm as it tries to compete with the iPhone and other smart phones. Palm appeared to be confident when reporting results late Thursday, saying that it could have positive cash flow by the second half of the recently begun fiscal year.
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2. Oracle | 06.26.09
I am shorting Palm in the long term. There was some initial hype to the Pre but the main selling point is that if you are on SPrint and you have to have a SmartPhone, the Pre is about it.
Useless to take overseas, the Pre is locked out of most upper management. And the audience for a non-global phone is shrinking rapidly. The advantage of multitasking is not an advantage. The other phones also multitask but Apple does theirs on a non-user demand basis to limit impact on battery life. This is why there are so many reports of Pre’s with 3 hour standby time. The user has inadvertently backgrounded a process that causes the phone to actively use battery.
Think about the hardware keyboard in landscape mode. Kinda hard to type huh? And on top of that the virtual keyboard onthe iPhone has reactive keys the grow in size according to the likelihood of use. The Pre’s tiny key hardware keyboard is hard of me to type on because I am 6′1″ and 265lbs and I have large hands. And of course, a software update can’t correct the hardware keyboard.
3. Apple Fanboy Deprogramming Team | 06.26.09
>if you are on SPrint and you have to have a SmartPhone, the Pre is about itUseless to take overseasThe other phones also multitask but Apple does theirs on a non-user demand basis to limit impact on battery lifethere are so many reports of Pre’s with 3 hour standbyThink about the hardware keyboard in landscape mode. Kinda hard to typethe virtual keyboard onthe iPhone has reactive keys the grow in size according to the likelihood of use
4. Drew | 06.27.09
“And of course, a software update can’t correct the hardware keyboard.”
Haha… what a silly thing to say. No, but it can add a software keypad so that you can have a choice.
If you don’t like the Pre keypad, don’t buy the phone. I think it keypad is excellent! Even better than the Treo.
5. James Fisher | 06.29.09
James Fisher from Sprint here. Regarding the commenter’s reference to use of Sprint smartphones overseas, I’ll concede that the Pre has limitations there. But that’s why we just announced availability of the Blackberry Tour world phone this summer. When you look at the whole selection of devices at Sprint — also including MiFi cards — there’s great stuff, whatever your specific need.
6. Dominik | 06.29.09
I played with the Pre for an hour and I love it.
If it weren’t for shortages I would have one right now.
7. Mike | 07.03.09
I have a Pre and it’s not perfect. If the Iphone was available on anything but AT&T, I’d buy it. The Pre is similar but is missing basic features like the ability to change a notification sound (like when you receive a txt message). If you need it to wake you up if you have a job where you are on-call…forget it. The battery is pretty bad. I don’t talk much on the phone during the day. I usually deal with email and txt messages all day. By about 8pm, the battery is just about dead. Compared to my blackberry, the battery is lousy. Overall it has potential but if I had to do it over again…I would wait for generation 2 and hopefully with Verizon. Well actaully, I’d rather an iphone on Verizon…..someday…maybe…
8. JJ | 07.22.09
The iphone does not truly multi-task. It only leaves the program in the backround and pauses the app. The Pre DOES true multi-tasking as the app is still running in the backround.
The Sprint 3g network is more reliable and larger than AT&T here in the U.S. If you compare coverage maps, you will see how bad AT&T 3g is compared to either Sprint or Verizon.
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1. Bob | 06.26.09
The iPhone does run multiple apps in the background, has push notifications for real time updates, and TONS of apps. I hate at@t as a carrier but sprint is even worse when it comes to coverage. Besides, the new 3.0 software brings the iPhone in line with other phones finally.
So palm is using misleading advertising to try and get new users. Nothing has come close to an iPhone in terms of coolness and fun to use qualities. I’m no fan boy but I can’t see myself without an iPhone.