Would you believe that it has been well over a year since the world was first introduced to webOS? During that time, we saw Palm’s quick ascent to the top where they ultimately plummeted down to reality as they were eventually bought up by HP. However, we’ve started to hear rumors of late regarding a refreshingly new face-lift to the once highly prized platform. Everyone still sporting a webOS smartphone are actually waiting in anticipation for webOS 2.0, but it looks as though we’re all getting a slight preview of the upcoming update.

Chinese website wibozi.com posted some revealing images regarding webOS 2.0 which should naturally get users up on their feet – especially when 24 screenshots provide us all some quick insights about it. Based on the captured images, we can expect to find multiple IM account types, Google Docs support, remote files storage with QuickOffice, Cisco VPN support, and Dropbox to name a few. Obviously this may be considered a boatload of new information to absorb, but isn’t that supposed to happen whenever a mobile platform is on the verge of releasing a highly anticipated update? Especially when it’s more than over due at this point?
source: wibozi.com (translated)

While Germany’s O2 is the only carrier to officially offer the webOS 1.4.5 upgrade to its customers, and AT&T owners will probably be the last to receive it, a self-proclaimed “Sprint employee” tells the PreCentral forum that webOS 1.4.5.1 will be available from Sprint on July 7th after most European carriers will have already made 1.4.5 available to customers. On the Palm site, it does let us know what changes to expect from this download, mostly some repairs to minor problems. On the browser, for example, if you enter text on certain web pages, the screen focus now will remain on the text being entered. The upgrade will also correct a rare problem that prevented some podcasts from downloading correctly and addresses several security issues with the software. The forum writing “Sprint employee” also dropped a few more items that the upgrade will bring to Sprint users such as fixing the e-mail so that the Sprint branded e-mail default signature is correctly branded. There will be some improvement to battery life and videos will be able to get sent via multimedia messaging. Sprint TV will have a couple of changes with an upgrade to version 3.5.4 and parental controls will be enhanced. Meanwhile, Palm has made the webOS 1.4.5 SDK available to all developers including the just out of beta PDK. The upgrade will allow 3D gaming PDK apps to be supported by the Palm Pixi.
source: PreCentralForums, Phonescoop

With the final details being ironed out between Palm and HP, some are still questioning whether or not the long time smartphone maker would even have an inkling of making another webOS powered handset in the near future. As we moved pass the anniversary of the Palm Pre’s launch with Sprint, Palm’s handset offerings are starting to look a bit stale when we see other contemporary handsets outshine the luster that once accompanied the Pre. During a developers webinar hosted by AT&T, there was a Palm rep that let slip out some interesting news regarding their plans for future devices. One would’ve imagined that HP would be in control and use their strength to bring about a handset quickly to the market, however, it would seem as though there is going to be a substantial gap between now and the time we see any new hardware come out. When asked if there were plans to release new devices this year, a Palm representative at the webinar said, “I’m not allowed to talk about future roadmaps, especially because we’re in the process of being acquired by HP, so I can’t say. But yes we have a road map. We are working on future devices. And [a] new version of the OS. So I think, you’re going to find the next year very exciting.” Naturally there would be a lot of people filled with excitement over this, but their choice of saying ‘the next year,” can dash some hopes seeing that it could be roughly a twelve month time frame before something is seen. Thankfully it doesn’t mean just one single handset is in the works as they mentioned specifically that they’re working on future devices.
via PreCentral

As HP and Palm continue to figure things out, it looks like one of the first things to develop out of the acquisition is a speculated webOS powered tablet. Even though the HP Slate was unveiled back during CES without much fanfare, the recent news about it getting axed raised an eye especially after HP’s buyout of Palm went through. Now there are rumors according to an insider over at HP that a new webOS tablet, going by the code name HP Hurricane, is in the works right now and could see a launch some time during Q3 of this year – which isn’t too far away from now. There is no denying that webOS is still a decent looking and viable platform that could see a major overhaul in the next few months as things look to steady over at Palm land. Without much hesitation, it’ll be interesting to see how this will end up as we continue to see a steady stream of competition around the tablet market in the coming months. We’ll see if there is some validity to these rumors as we wait and see how things turn out between Palm and HP.
source: The Examiner

As we reported earlier, Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein has said that the company has a plan to become profitable once again, and that he would like Palm to continue to work alone. But while the executive has made it clear that he does not want Palm to be acquired, some other firms have been sniffing around. One of them, Taiwan based HTC, took a look and has decided to pass. The fifth largest global cellphone manufacturer did have some private talks with the webOS developer and decided that an acquisition of Palm would not be right for them. A source close to the situation told Reuters, “There just weren’t enough synergies to take the deal forward.” Another company mentioned as a possible suitor, China’s Huawei, also decided to pass over Palm. According to Investment Bankers, this leaves the world’s fourth largest PC maker, Lenovo, as a potential bidder. The company at the end of last year had $2.9 billion in its coffers, enough to finance a buy out of Palm, which could run in the range of $1.5-$3.0 billion. One banker wondered what exactly a winning bidder would be buying. “What are you buying – a good operating system?” he said. “It’s a wounded brand.” In the quarter that ended February 26th, Palm sold only 408,000 units of its webOS devices, less than the 600,000 estimated by analysts. Lenovo had a cellphone unit which it sold to concentrate on computers, then bought it back last year. It has produced a model for the Chinese market but needs a product for the U.S. market which is the world’s largest based on the number of users. Lenovo is no stranger to big deals, having purchased IBM’s PC business 5 years ago.
source: Reuters

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

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