Germany is going to get even more love from Palm as they’ve officially confirmed that both the Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus are heading into the country – both being tied to an April 28th official launch. As a whole, Palm’s devices are being spread out to other wireless providers littered across Europe as they’ve confirmed that both O2 and Vodafone are expected to see the light of the devices – it’s also being reported that UK owners can expect to see them available through O2 UK as well. The somewhat blitzkrieg maneuver will hopefully spur the much needed sales of the two handsets on a worldwide scale. For their part in doing what they can, O2 Germany has been a prominent figure in attempting to make the Palm Pre a success – unfortunately, they will no longer have the exclusivity as they did previously. It’s not to say that’s a bad thing, especially for Palm, but this all out tactic might signal Palm’s determination to make things work – or a last ditch effort to change their fortunes around.
source: Palm via PreCentral

It’s not to say that the web browser on the Pre isn’t bad, but it probably was filled with some kind of jealousy after Firefox was recently found running on the device. Even though the Motorola MILESTONE was able to accomplish the same thing previously, the Pre was equally capable of doing the same thing – but probably not as smooth as one would’ve hoped for. The work was done by one of the the developers for Mozilla working on Firefox, Dave Townsend, which was concocted over the course of two days as he was able to port over the Android version of Firefox into webOS. It might be fine and dandy that it’s up and running on the handset, but there are noticeable imperfections with it that make the experience buggy. Although some would love to attempt the same instructions on getting Firefox onto the Pre, Townsend hasn’t let out anything yet due to the fact that this is just his hobby project and nowhere close to an alpha level. Nonetheless, it just goes to show that there is the potential for it to happen on the Pre, but trying to get the Firefox UI onto the Pre’s screen is work in itself.
source: PreCentral

With rumors all over Wall Street during the week about a possible takeover of Palm, Bloomberg is reporting on Monday that the company is putting itself up for sale. Faced with poor sales of the two devices it was counting on to make a miracle comeback, Palm has apparently hired former Superstar Banker Frank Quatrone and Goldman Sachs to explore the sale of the company. Some of the prospective buyers include fellow cell phone manufacturer HTC, based in Taiwan, and Chinese computer maker Lenovo. Elevation Partners owns 30% of the company,an investment that once showed a ten fold profit before roundtripping when the stock went from $4 to $18 and back to $4 before last week’s rumor fueled advance..

Palm had seemingly thrown a Hail Mary Touchdown pass early in 2009 when it introduced the Palm Pre and the webOS operating system. Immediately the handset was branded as a strong competitor to the iPhone and the stock took off. At launch, sales failed to hit expectations thanks to a small number of available apps, a strange marketing campaign, a questionable build, and a screen that would now be considered undersized at 3.2 inches. Even when the Pre and the Palm Pixi were made available to Verizon customers as the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus with added memory and other features, sales remained poor. Androidmania had already begun and Big Red was selling tons of its flagship Motorola DROID handset. With a focused ad campaign, plenty of apps to choose from, the DROID became Verizon’s first phone worthy of sharing space with the iPhone. While the webOS duo still is expected to be sold through AT&T soon, that move is not seen as one that can save Palm from being sold. As a result of takeover rumors, the stock soared 32% last week after dropping over 60% this year. To highlight the problems Palm faces, the CFO, Doug Jeffries, predicts $150 million in sales for the quarter ending next month. That is half of the $300 million in revenue expected by analysts in a Bloomberg survey.

Palm is currently valued at about $870 million in market value and according to Gartner, is sixth in the North American smartphone market with a 4.3% share compared with leader Research In Motion with a 44% slice of the pie, and a 24% stake owned by Apple. While a buyer might not have any use for Palm’s hardware, the webOS software has received mostly rave reviews and could be worth something for a company like HTC that depends on operating systems from Google and Microsoft for its many handset models.
source: Bloomberg

Despite their intentions on still trucking along and hopeful about staying alive to celebrate the one year anniversary of their first webOS handset’s launch, there are rumors surrounding a company that is interested in buying Palm – and at the same time, save the company from a hasty demise. Speculations are swirling around PC maker Lenovo possibly interested in taking over the long time smartphone maker. It’s yet unclear as to what plans they may have up their sleeves for Palm if they do indeed take over the company, but these rumors seemingly have a positive affect on Palm’s stock value of late. Even though Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein may be defiant in looking for any potential bid offers, Lenovo’s purchase of Palm could increase their visibility in the market as they are about to take the plunge with their Android powered LePhone. Just a reminder for those that might’ve forgotten, it features a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, 3-megapixel camera, GPS, Wi-Fi, QWERTY keyboard. Palm’s patent portfolio is no doubt seen by many as a valuable asset to companies, but we’re confident that some of the things seen on webOS could also be integrated into other platforms. You never know, Lenovo may opt to utilize webOS’s leverage and integrate some of its components into some kind of customized Android experience a la Sense or MOTOBLUR.
via Electronista

According to Advertising Age, Palm has finally decided to fire ad agency Modernista and is currently looking for a new ad house. Modernista was responsible for the awful Palm Pre spots featuring a very pale looking woman. No surprise that the handset, once considered a worthy adversary to the iPhone, ended up selling poorly. While the weak sales cannot be blamed totally on the advertising, Verizon’s success with the Motorola DROID following a $100 million ad campaign shows the magic that can happen with a great phone and commercials that the public can relate to. At the time of its launch, the Pre had many good reviews but the low number of apps combined with the questionable ads did in the webOS device. Before Palm and Sprint could rebound, the beginning of Androidmania was underway and even getting a new lease on life at Verizon was not able to boost sales.

Where did Modernista go wrong? Commercials for two hot selling models, the Apple iPhone and the Motorola DROID, show each phone at work whether it is using apps in everyday situations or explaining in simple English that a certain handset does specific functions. Both models show useful things that real people want their phone to do. On the other hand, in the Pre ad below, the subject is reincarnation and the model says that before the Pre, she couldn’t keep track of the lives she was living much less recall her past lives. For most people, this would not be considered a function that they would need their smartphone for. Palm isn’t the only account that Modernista has lost recently. the ad agency lost its biggest account-GM’s Cadillac brand-late last year.
source: AdvertisingAge via Engadget

Palm’s WebOS devices and the iPhone are getting some free public TV viewing thanks to SPB TV that’s available for free through Palm’s App Catalog and Apple’s App Store. With plenty of viewing material from around the world, there will surely be something on there that’ll catch your eyes. The interface should be familiar to cable subscribers with its quick channel previews and TV Guide-like view to allow you to check out what’s playing. In addition, there is support for adaptive network bandwidth control to allow an undisturbed steady stream of your favorite content to your handset. With no additional subscription charges required to watch content, it would make the perfect solution for those individuals that can tolerate the available programming on these public television channels – plus it can be used to kill some time in between work.
via IntoMobile & PalmInfocenter

Although some may perceive Palm to be trailing some of the leaders in the apps department, the company is holding a two day session geared towards app development on their WebOS platform. When it comes to the total amount of apps available to the platform, Palm’s App Catalog still pales in comparison to the levels offered by the App Store and Android Market. The two day session will commence on April 23 where Palm’s goal is to provide world-class training on how to develop apps for their platform – which is also grounds for an opportunity to exchange ideas with the Palm development team. They’ll offer some instruction to provide potential developers the basics on how to create some immersive apps for the platform that’ll stand head above the water over its rivals – especially in the 3D game arena where they’ve started to show some improvements. Registration for the event will go live starting on April 5 where a $25 pre-registration fee will be required for all attendees which includes food and a commemorative gift – let’s hope it’s not something to remember the company by as they stand on thin ice.
source: Palm via PalmInfocenter

It’s almost scary to imagine that Big Red is having an extremely difficult time selling their WebOS smartphones, but the facts are pointing to a realizing truth – which might not look too good for Palm. Already seeing drops in pricing for both the Palm Pixi Plus and Pre Plus models, it’s apparent that it might not have been enough to attract people to it. Checking out their web site, Verizon is now offering the Pre Plus for $49.99 and Pixi Plus for $29.99 – those are some serious pricing structures that would hopefully entice enough people. Not stopping there, one of the special features that these WebOS handsets offer are its Mi-Fi like capabilities with Mobile Hotspot. To even sweeten the deal for potential buyers, the add-on feature is being listed as $0.00 on Verizon’s web site. When you look at the new strategies they’ve put in place, it wouldn’t be surprising to see these two decent smartphones get a much needed sales kick – not to mention that it still qualifies for their BOGO offer. Time will tell if this move is able to stir up sales for Palm’s devices with Verizon, but if it doesn’t, it could spell for some potential disastrous news for the long time smartphone maker.
source: Verizon (Pre, Pixi) via BerryScoop

With a launch expected for later this summer, the training model of the Palm Pre Plus is expected to reach AT&T today. The model will be used off the sales floor to train reps, but when training is complete, the model becomes a live store display. With things starting to move rapidly, it could be that the carrier will be ready to offer the webOS flavored model a bit earlier than thought. The faster the distribution of the Pre Plus widens, the better the chances are that Palm could generate enough cash flow to stay alive. Speaking of cash, there is no word on how much AT&T plans on selling the phone for.
source: EngadgetMobile

Out of the blue, it looks like WebOS 1.4.1 has started to roll out to certain devices – but signs point to a to a limited European launch so far. Interestingly enough, some may perceive it to be nothing too major, but it does offer some minor bug fixes for background multi-tasking, compatibility for paid international apps, and the ability to use Mobile Hotspot – some goodies for our friends across the big pond. Although the update appears to be limited to O2 customers in Germany and the UK for the mean time, there was a Sprint user in Washington that surprisingly said that he received it – so it’s still a bit unclear as to who this roll out is actually affecting. It seems like the US is still in the dark for the most part, except for that one individual that somehow got it – but hopefully it’ll get released to the masses soon enough.
source: PreCentral