Palm WebOS fails to meet expectations
Palm showed promise in 2009 with the WebOS platform and Palm Pre smartphone, but sales have stagnated
Palm shares are in a bit of a free-fall following Palm's announcement that it expects revenue for its third fiscal quarter to be more than 25 percent below analyst expectations. The next-generation Palm devices have received critical acclaim, but have failed to drive sales against stiff smartphone competition.
This time last year, Palm was making headlines in anticipation of the launch of WebOS and the Palm Pre smartphones. The new smartphone platform debuted at the 2009 CES, and was launched in June of 2009 exclusively with Sprint.
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Hailed as a potential "iPhone killer," the Palm Pre, and its smaller sibling the Palm Pixi, have received a fair amount of praise. However, much of that praise was actually directed at the WebOS platform, while the device itself was criticized for poor quality and worse battery life.
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Palm then engaged in a battle with Apple -- trying to outflank and outsmart Apple to enable the WebOS smartphones to sync with Apple iTunes. Had it succeeded, Palm could have ridden the coattails of the popular digital music resource, but Apple blocked Palm's access, filed a complaint with the USB regulatory group, and broke Palm's ability to sync with every new update to the iTunes software.
