“Analysts see Palm Inc.’s new Pre smart phone as something more than a wannabe iPhone, but it really looks like nothing more than its popular rival with a slide-out keypad,” John C. Dvorak writes for MarketWatch.

“Ever since Apple Inc. showed it could popularize the once-drab market, everyone is trying to get into the smart-phone act. What that means is a touch-sensitive screen and copying the iPhone interface as much as possible,” Dvorak writes. “Palm was once an innovator in the smart-phone sector, but I’m not seeing this latest ‘innovation’ as much more than a copycat reaction to getting trumped by Apple.”

“Currently, there are six major smart-phone platforms: Apple, Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., Nokia Corp.’s Symbian, Palm and Research In Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry. Promising platforms such as Neonode and others already have fallen by the wayside,” Dvorak writes.If I were to pick two winners from this group, Palm would not be one of them. We can presume Apple’s iPhone is.

MacDailyNews Take: Please see related articles:
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Dvorak continues, “That leaves four others. The likelihood of Microsoft managing anything is close to nil… Symbian from Nokia probably will fall back to fulfilling the need for the almost-smart phone — essentially a regular handset with a lot of features. RIM’s BlackBerry is hard to count out, since it has led in business-oriented mobile phones since the 1990s. But its touch-screen phone is a clunker compared with the iPhone. That leaves Google and the G1, running on Android… its potential is the greatest.”

Full article, in which Dvorak state, “for Palm and RIM to survive, they’ll need the Google Android operating system,” here.

MacDailyNews Take: Even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes?