There was a time when at any Conference there would be at least as many Palm Pilots as attendees. No one needs to tell Palm that RIM’s Blackberry in the business market and the iPhone in “cooler” circles now dominate. But the company’s latest shipment figures look encouraging: in the fiscal second quarter of 2009, the company shipped 783,000 Smartphones, a significant increase on the 599,000 shipped in the same period of 2008, though down a touch on last quarter.
Taking an optimistic view, the company’s fortunes may be turning, as rumours suggest that the company will launch its new webOS operating system at the Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas in January and a tie-up with Verizon Wireless now seems to be on the cards, supplementing the carrier relationship it has with Sprint Nextel. Carrier relationships are, of course, more valuable than gold dust to any handset manufacturer.
However the market is becoming increasingly competitive. With RIM shipping a record 10.1 million phones in Q3 and expecting to ship 10.6-11.2 million phones in the current quarter. There is also a possibility of Google’s Android phone round the corner.
Tags: google phone, Palm, RIM, smartphone, Sprint, Sprint Nextel, Verizon, webOS
