UPDATE: A source within Palm (who is known to us but wants to remain off the record) has contacted us to say that “there is no memo and no plans to adopt Android. We are very happy with and committed to webOS.”
An anonymously sourced, unconfirmed memo partially quoted on Slashdot purports to show that Palm is ready to ditch the failing WebOS — which powers its Pre smartphone — and instead become yet another Android handset maker. The full memo was promised to be posted on Wikileaks at midnight ET last night. It is still not there. Here is the purported “quote” from Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein:
While Palm is incredibly proud of our engineers who spent timeless work and effort to bring us this advanced operating system, consumers simply have not caught on. To provide a better future for ourselves and our customers, the only logical choice is to transition our hardware and software to the Android platform.
Despite the rather suspicious origins of this information, it does seem like one of the only ways out for Palm, which really did bet the farm on the WebOS. Back at CES 2009, the Pre was the star of the show, with almost unanimous praise from the tech press. It multi-tasks, it has the UI polish you’d expect from a bunch of ex-Apple engineers and it has some genuinely clever features: the windows-as-card-stacks metaphor, and the notification bar, for example. Everybody thought the Pre would save Palm.
But it failed to sell, to the extent that Palm has actually ceased production temporarily and is trying to help telcos shift inventory.
Could a move to Android keep Palm from closing down? Android is hot right now, and while the Motorola Droid and the Google Nexus are no iPhones is terms of sales, they’re getting a lot of press. Just like the Pre did, in fact.
It’d be a risky move. In swapping to Android, Palm would be throwing out the one unique thing that it has to sell. The WebOS is way more important than the Pre (or its little sister, the Pixi): those are just boxes. And if the iPhone has taught us anything, it’s that the box doesn’t matter: It’s all in the OS. Palm’s failure wasn’t in making a bad OS. It was poor marketing. That weird, giant woman on the TV ads? Confusing, if not scary. The iPhone ads, on the other hand, tell us exactly what the phone does, and no more.
Our advice? Stick with WebOS and just fix your ad campaign, showing people that you can use the phone as a five-device MiFi-style hot-spot or that you can use it to tether your iPad. Show the phone in action and people will buy it.
Or license that OS and go up against Android itself. Handset makers will be getting the jitters right now after Apple’s lawsuit against HTC. Offer them something free of patent infringements, something that is here today (unlike Windows Phone 7), and you might just turn Palm into the Microsoft of the cellphone world.
Rumor: Palm ditching webOS for Android? [Slashdot]
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Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com
