“You know the beautiful thing: June 29, 2009, is the two- year anniversary of the first shipment of the iPhone,” Elevation Partners (which owns a huge portion of Palm) co-founder Roger McNamee told Bloomberg in March. “Not one of those people will still be using an iPhone a month later.”
“So how did McNamee’s claim turn out? Well, let’s put it this way: If there was a foot-in-the-mouth award given every year, no one else would need to apply this year,” Siegler writes for TechCrunch. “Hell, it might take the prize for the whole decade.”
Siegler writes, “Estimates are that Apple sold somewhere between 250,000 to 500,000 iPhones in its first weekend on sale in 2007. The last estimates given for Pre sales was that it sold around 300,000 by the end of June. It’s entirely possible that there haven’t even been as many Pres sold so far as there were iPhones sold during its first weekend. That doesn’t just make McNamee’s claim look bad — it makes it impossible.”
“The fact of the matter is that the iPhone remains the hottest smartphone and may be the hottest platform overall on the planet, right now,” Siegler writes. “Apple has sold around 25 million iPhones. Palm has sold something probably south of a half million Pres — it’s a number that Sprint wouldn’t even say during its earnings call. And whatever the number was, it was not enough to stop the service from bleeding customers last quarter.”
There’s much more crow being served in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “GetMeOntop” for the heads up.]
Ballmer still wins the award……laughing and saying who in their right mind would spend that kinda money on an iPhone,
He may have been referring to the original iPhone. Luckily for us I know a person who still has their original iPhone.
“eat crow”? More like “laugh all the way to the bank”, as Palm’s stock has doubled since he made that remark.
Who cares if nobody uses it? He’s a businessman, not some kind of visionary.
Looks like TechCrunch iCal’d MacNamee’s quote too.
You people with you long attention spans and your meticulous record keeping simply don’t get it. Let me explain one more time.
Look at the bunny! Look at the bunny! Over here. Look at me waving the bunny!
Any questions? Good.
McNamee another plain vanilla, off-the-shelf, clueless blabber mouth asshat.
Like anyone (even McNamee) really took that to be a literal prediction. Even he knew it was ridiculous when he uttered it…
Can’t place the “bunny” reference. Vaguely familiar. But still drawing blanks.
*agreeing-with-HMCIV*
(but nevertheless 😀 : what a pubescent wacko, that Mr. McNamee… I guess wannabe is right: No honor, no vision, just there to make a quick buck)
This is somehow a story about a crow, a bunny, and a buck.
He may have been way off the mark, but so many of those Apple/iPhone hating bloggers and tech dummies were pumping his crow harder than John Holmes at his peak. Let’s hear it from those guilty idiots and admit that you guys were just as stupid as Ballmer and Smackame-please!
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@wannabe said:
“”eat crow”? More like “laugh all the way to the bank”, as Palm’s stock has doubled since he made that remark.”
so what? in same period, lowly MOT shares have doubled too, also RIMM and others. AAPL has gone from ~$88 to ~$160 in this time.
McNamee’s “prediction” was still ridiculous, regardless.
It’s a good thing that we couldn’t go back to day one and ever day since, and identify all those naysayers that posted here and everywhere else the demise of the iPhone.
Not that it would matter. They probably have so much shit in their mouths, thAT there wouldn’t be enough room for the crow.
Let alone the uproar that would be raised for the animal activists and such.
I know 2 Pre users. Both already had Sprint service and didn’t want to change. I think Sprint is seeing existing customers swap, rather than actually attracting too much new business.
I barely see Pre advertising. No idea of Pre’s ‘killer app’ and a co-worker wanted to show me Pre’s weather, and I think it took him 6-8 clicks, whereas on the iPod, I unlocked it and tapped the weather button.
Good luck, Palm.
LOL……. But, But, But, the Pre does multitasking
Do sales figures for the Pre reflect buyers who have returned the Pre after purchase? Probably not. According to some estimates, the return rate on this over-hyped, underwhelming device may be as high as 40%.
It’s funny how some people review Pre and repeat what they read about webOS because they have no idea what it really is and how limited it is. Yeah, great operating system.
jjjj,
You know someone who has Sprint and likes it?!?!?
Wow. Are they enamored with Windoze and hot sporks in their eyeballs, too?
That is only 2% of the iPhone sales.
So how many of the 500,000 were sold (or given) to employees, used in sales floor, … How many of the crap phones were really sold?
You have to know when to hold them. Know when to fold them. GAME IS OVER. THE iPHONE WON!