14 DAY TRIAL // Sunnyvale-based mobile phone maker Palm is having some hard times lately, mainly due to the fact that its Palm Pre and Pixi handsets are not selling as good as expected. Both handsets are powered by its webOS platform, and are available in the US, Canada and on the European market, but it seems that Palm's ship is still sinking.
As soon as Palm lowered its financial expectations for the third quarter of its financial year 2010, speculations on the possibility that the company will be sold emerged, and now they are accompanied by more rumors. According to analysts and observers, there are great chances that Palm would release a WiMAX handset on Sprint, something that would help it regain its foothold.
Kris Keilhack, associate editor at PalmInfocenter.com, said that there were great chances that these rumors might prove only wishful thinking, though it is true that Palm needs to do something that will bring it back. Sprint and Palm have a tight relationship, and the carrier launched the first webOS handset last year, something that might result in the release of the first webOS-based WiMAX handset too, especially since Sprint announced plans to make a move in this direction.
According to a recent article on ComputerWorld, Sprint already put in place a special event at the CTIA trade show in March, but the carrier hasn't unveiled any details on what it might unveil at that time. Moreover, neither Sprint nor Palm commented on the possibility that they might launch a WiMAX phone at that time.
Ken Dulaney, an analyst at Gartner Inc. commented on the rumors, stating that a WiMAX phone would be a 'poor leverage for Palm', according to the news site. “Palm needs to first and foremost build a phone that looks like the iPhone and the Nexus One and get rid of the Pre's [physical] keyboard,” Dulaney reportedly said. “Making it thin would be great with a touch screen that's 3.7 in. to 4.3 in. They have to hit the next home run here.”