The Palm Pre takes Manhattan
Palm (PALM) brought the Pre to Hollywood Wednesday to bask in the glow of the glitterati. On Friday morning it got down to business and brought its hot new phone to midtown Manhattan.
At an invitation-only event, roughly 100 men in business suits — and a handful of women — gathered at the Roosevelt Hotel to nibble on fresh fruit and croissants and weigh in their own hands the newest entry in the smartphone sweepstakes.
The event was hosted by Sprint (S), the Pre's exclusive carrier — at least for now — and in his introductory remarks Sprint CEO Dan Hesse joked about how out of place he felt at the L.A. event dressed in a suit jacket. "I needed a little black turtleneck or something," he said.
In New York, Hesse made the best business case he could for the Sprint network — the No. 3 carrier with less than 50 million U.S. subscribers after No. 1 Verizon (VZN) with 86.6 million and No. 2 AT&T (T) with 78.2 million. He cited a Gizmodo study that rated Sprint the fastest network in New York City. "We have the most dependable 3G network," he said, "and this year we will be rolling out the first 4G network."
Hesse tried to put Sprint's recent history behind it, arguing that Sprint today is not the Sprint it was 12 months ago. He called Friday's gathering a "coming out party."Â He said he'd been waiting for an event that brings out the new Sprint — "and that event is the launch of the Palm Pre."
The audience listened respectfully; most of them are already Sprint customers, and over the next few days Sprint reps will be bringing them complimentary Pres.
Whether these guys in suits will be using their Pres remains to be seen. We venture to guess that nearly everybody in the room already has one of Palm's competitors. We know because while they were waiting for Hesse to speak, half of them were hunched over their existing smartphones — mostly Research in Motion (RIMM) BlackBerrys, with a scattering of Apple (AAPL) iPhones and Microsoft (MSFT) Windows Mobile devices.
The Pre will go on sale to the general public Saturday morning at Sprint, Best Buy (BBY) selected Radio Shack (RSH) stores across the county.
You are showing how little you know now James.
BES WAS open to other devices through the Blackberry Connect program. No one cared about it so it eventually died. HTC and Treo both had a client.
THE CAL is comparable to any other similar backend solution. For the volume Blackberry we use the cost is less then $40 a seat – cheaper then anything else with most solutions in the 60-100 range.
Blackberry MDS allows the Blackberry to securely access any internal website (granted it's mobile friendly) so unsure how that's not incorporated into the corporate network. No need for a secondary solution that all the other devices need (VPN) or lessen your security on the firewall opening additional ports. With BES 5.0 and BB OS 5.0 you now get fileshare access so Blackberry gets more functionality.
Mobility isn't cheap if you value security and proper management. Every company might not need BES type control but those that do – nothing currently on the market is even in the same league.
BES is a closed proprietary program used for blackberry only. You cannot compare Rim with Microsoft because Windows runs on all Intel PCs but only blackberries run on BES. BES license fee is excessively expensive for doing nothing more than just registering blackberries and synchronizing blackberry folders with the blackberry servers.
BES cannot be incorporated into the corporate network, BES has to run as a standalone server. BES cannot be used for any other devices, corporates find BES increasingly difficult to justify, BES is becoming more imposing and important than the corporate board of directors and employees.
The corporate world cannot allow BES to override the board of directors like that, it shows that the corporates must yield to BES to the choice of devices it can use.
Pre is newly born, iPhone is not even 2 years old. For BES to condemn the rest of the world shows a grossly arrogant attitude and a pungent dis-service to the spirit of free enterprise. Open architectures must be deployed with highly security facilities, but to sacrifice openness with closed proprietary solutions is not acceptible nor responsible. Rim is the only one going with closed proprietary solutions as the rest of the world go for openness.
ped: Do you have any insight if the Pre works on the 4G wimax network? I can't seem to find an authoritative answer anywhere.
ex ped: Good question. Now that you mention it. they were a bit cagey about that at the Saturday briefing. They talked a lot about being the first to deploy 4G, but I don't remember anyone ever saying explicitly that the Pre works with it out of the box. And I didn't think to ask.
Even with the BES fees, you are not going to see corporate America leaving RIM… Does Pre guarantee to work inside Microsoft Exchange? I did not hear anything about it yet (and hence the same issue with iPhone.. Not talking about the work around)..
Until Palm is mainstream and they offer applications to work inside corporate exchange servers, I am not certain how it will be.. It is more the comparison to the iPhone which is a powerful but primarily a consumer phone (and not really a business phone.. It could change but I do not see it at this time)..
Sprint service plan is a great idea and I hope they increase the coverage area.. If they do that, I would consider it but Verizon seems to cover all our areas without issue and signal…
RIM might be in a slight decline but it is not really seen in the coporate side.. I found non-business consumer do like Blackberry… It is the hype and versatility of the iPhone that draws many to it (though many who has it do not use half the stuff on it).. At the end, RIM is like Microsoft of business cell phone systems..
Open model is good for the consumers but not for the company.. Eventually, it will get there like all technology.. But to say that RIM is going down because America wants American goods is a bit out in left field.. BTW, I support the produced, made, and assembled on the USA but it is almost impossible for that to happen after the US manufacturing sector got outsourced.. On top of that, most of the parts and pieces for a good are made outside of the US (like China).. So GM cars for example are made from Mexico, Australia, and Canada but assembled in the US (and advertised made in the USA)… So US regulation is not going to hurt RIM.. If anything else, RIM might just made a plant in the US (or more of it if they have some present) and do what Honda, Toyota, and Nissan did in the 80s with Reagan tariffs and quotas
BES is the biggest Rim lock on corporate customers to the blackberries. BES is Rim's cash cow. Is it impossible for the world to write a program to replace BES? No, it is possible to write a program to replace BES, and the benefits to do so are openness so that corporates are not limited to blackberries only, and the savings when there are BES features which are not needed, and the ability to customize the server to the corporate.
People who don't fully understand BES are afraid of BES, they would not look at alternatives.
@James
You say the most crazy things and I doubt you ever worked anywhere as you truely need help.
Where is this "Homegrown server" coming from? Does ANY of the other smartphones have the same security certification as RIM? Reality is Blackberry keeps moving along and while yes the Storm had issues the coming devices do not (8900, Tour etc) Any corporate entity that has regulations to adhere to will firmly stay with Blackberry and BES until someone can surpess that level of functionality and control AND have a cheaper TCO. Trust me its not out there from anyone. So your left either supporting multiple platforms fully being aware you do not have the level of control you desire or you go to a single platform and 9 out of 10 times it will be Blackberry. For any Fortune 500 enterprise that is reality.
James – when that happens you direct your CEO to your Compliance / Risk officer and if he or she does not understand why iPhone (or Pre) is not supported they will be reminded. This isn't about users whining why they can't use a certain device.
Now personal liable is definately interesting but it brings a whole slew of things to figure out:
- do employees agree that you monitor their SMS/TXT?
- What about personal data and on termination – will they agree to your need to erase the device?
I travel frequently and I see plenty of young people with Pearls and Curves. Blackberry has for 3 months had 3 of the top 5 smartphones so apparently many people like their product.
Pre will be an interesting option for some people. Like iPhone it needs to be cross carrier sooner rather then later and I feel Palm will do that much quicker as they are not such control freaks.
I am a Sprint customer and a Blackberry owner. However, my Blackberry is from the fall of 2006. So, I am ready for a new phone. I like Sprint's $99 All-Everything plan. So, I won't be leaving Sprint any time soon (I like the iPhone but AT&T doesn't have great reception inside my home).
I am excited about the Pre and might get one, but I want to wait until I can get my hands on one and test drive it. I am not buying the hype just yet.
Young people wouldn't be caught dead with Blackberries, that's easily a third or more of the smartphone market. From what most people know, consumers with expiring blackberries who want better web, music and video are moving away from blackberries. Corporate failures have already taken away much of the blackberry business and that doesn't seem to slow down a bit as businesses are moving away from providing their employees, instead, businesses are encouraging the employees to get their own phones for work. Suddenly there are a lot more iPhones, Nokia and Samsung, LG, Palm and HTC being used for work now. Just look around you instead of keep on with your heads down blackberry prayers, it's a better world now. Pre is already a better eMail phone than blackberry is. Now just replace that blackberry-only BES with a homegrown server and start creating more jobs for Americans instead of paying so much license fees for a proprietary email and blackberry-only program such as BES, what happens if your company and business partner is Palm, Apple, Microsoft, or someone who do not use blackberries? What happens if your CEO wants to use an iPhone or Pre? Is Barack Obama not allowed to use a Pre if he so chooses? How about yourselves?
Blackberry's demise is being accelerated by the rapid launches of products from Nokia, Samsung, HTC, Sony, and now Palm and Apple.
Coupled with continuous crumpling of Blackberry's business clientele as American businesses and projects are moving towards made-in-america contents Blackberry will be pushed out of the American landscape to be replaced by truly American products and services that would help create American jobs and bolster the IT and technological jobs and skills of the American citizens who would help make Barack Obama's dream of a better America come true in the future.
Were is the soft reset button on the Pre? I am sure it will freeze up if Palm is behind it. It is nothing but a painted rat.
Palmpre is NOT taking half of anything. The problem is that most people don't like SPRINT and I am keeping my Blackberry. I guarantee you Verizon and AT&T are the major providers for most major corporations employee phones. PalmPre should dump Sprint if it wants to compete with the Iphone and Blackberry.
Palm Pre should take away at least half of the existing Blackberry consumer market shares given the shaky status of the blackberry Storms, Flips and Curves.
This is big for Palm and Sprint – two companies desperately trying to get back on their feet. I won't stand in line for a Pre the first day, but I will certainly take a good look at one once the hype settles down.
Yup, pretty cool phone, too bad it does not have a cisco vpn client like the iTouch and iPhone to actually connect to a corporate secure network. Sent ours back yesterday and ordered iPhones. Not jumping thru hoops with the palm to get this work, the i's take 5 minutes to setup. Stupid move on palms part but I guess they are going after the texters and bloat market.