Palm CEO Jonathan Rubinstein doesn’t think he has to beat the brains out of former employer Apple, or any other smartphone vendor, in order for Palm to succeed. It’s a remarkably calm assessment from the leader of a company whose future depends largely on the success of a single product launch, and even more so in the context of the testosterone-driven culture we inhabit, where from sports stadiums to Silicon Valley we’re more accustomed to hearing macho posturing than reasoned discourse. According to Rubinstein, the smartphone market has so much growth in store for it that “there’s room for three to five players to win in this space. We don’t have to beat each other to prosper.”
Yesterday’s earnings report didn’t include figures from the release of Pre, the hook on which Palm is hanging its only hat, so Rubinstein prefaced his comments with a few nuggets about the company’s prized new handset. The most impressive factoid, given that the Pre launched less than a month ago, is that customers have already downloaded over one million apps, even though Palm has been very slow bringing them to market and only offers eighteen apps to date.
To read more, please see Palm Takes Seat At Smartphone Table on my BNET Technology blog.
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