Comments on: Analyst: Nokia should buy Palm

By: Gregg Thurman

Gregg Thurman — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 03:46:06 +0000

"If Nokia ever decides to eschew their own dog food, they'd do better to use Google's free Android OS than waste their money on the mess that is beleaguered Palm."

Absolutely not. The market rulers are going to be those that are completely and thoroughly vertically integrated. Android is going to spawn a bevy of Windows-like box assemblers. The only thing they will have to differentiate themselves will be price, and that's a losers game.

The webOS isn't OSX, but then it hasn't had the time to mature that OSX has had. That said its an order of magnitude ahead of Android and RIMM both.

Nokia with webOS would be a worthy competitor to the iPhone, especially considering that they would get the Palm development team with it.

By: LordRobin

LordRobin — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 01:21:33 +0000

"The company desperately needs a worthy super-smartphone contender (it’s clearly not the N900 or N97)

With such interest-piqueing names as "N900" and "N97", it's clear Nokia hasn't learned one damn thing about marketing to consumers.

------RM

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 20:54:02 +0000

Right. and Nokia should also buy GM, and a few banks, and the Republik of California, and any other insolvent institution that they can get their hands on. That would bolster their market share for another quarter, right?

By: G4Dualie

G4Dualie — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 19:21:41 +0000

Everyone's got an answer to Nokia's problem.

Like so many captain's of industry, all they've done in the last decade was take profits without investing. Nowhere is this more evident than with the Telcos and phone manufacturers.

Steve Jobs came out swinging and on his first try, derailed their gravy train. Can you say Razor? Phhfft!

Suddenly, they look to their research and development for answers but they jumped ship years ago and all you hear are crickets.

cheep. cheep. cheap.

Those who are desperately trying to make up for lost time have only shallow cosmetic changes to cover up the same tired technology.

Jobs was right, these people are five years behind the power curve, and that's a lo-o-ong time in tech years.

By: wannabe

wannabe — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 19:15:22 +0000

No, Nokia shouldn’t by Palm. That’s just stupid. There’s nothing wrong with the OSes Nokia’s developed in-house, except that they suuuck, and it’s not like buying Palm helps.

Nokia’s “focus on non-smartphones”, which I’ll generously dub the “Third World Strategy”, isn’t going to work either. Probably time to do a shut-the-company-down-and-give-the-money-back-to-the-shareholders.

By: KenC

KenC — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 19:11:15 +0000

Sony Ericsson should buy Palm. They need a new idea.

By: SAB

SAB — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 19:04:12 +0000

Nokia would be smarter if they just kept developing Maemo Linux. They might need to hire some better UI people, but having their own OS that they control is a far better strategy. All they need to do is put the proper software development effort into it. They already have tremendous relationships built with the carriers. They ought to be using the Linux community, too. They could really make an impact with the right push behind Linux with a variety of devices.

By: Gabriel

Gabriel — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 18:59:35 +0000

@ kirkgray - HA! Excellently stated.

I did some Googling and found an interesting blog post related to Nokia's current dual-OS strategy. The comments there are also interesting, particularly the anonymous comment allegedly from a Nokia employee near the bottom.

By: zek

zek — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 18:45:50 +0000

Years after iPhone launch, the fools are still tripping over each other, still nowhere near a coherent platform. Still no clue. Still the same ol' directors, same ol 'designers', same ol marketing bodies....

Why doesn anyone still have any respect for any of these monkeys with suits on?

By: kirkgray

kirkgray — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 18:14:43 +0000

Yeah, because what Nokia really needs right now is one more OS strategy.

By: Big Als MBP

Big Als MBP — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 18:02:22 +0000

Android is not without it's problems. Multi screen sizes and resolutions. Multi hardware configurations. Multi OS customizations. 10,000 Apps in the Google App store that may or may not work on your Android OSed phone.

Then there is Google's looming OS monetization in the form of unwanted ads infesting every corner of the phone screen. Google has to be paid for it's OS somehow.

Google's Android has just killed Windows Mobile. That is all they have accomplished so far. There is still an evil corporation behind the only OS for manufacturers who don't write their own OS.

Nokia, if you can roll your own OS, do it.

By: iSteve

iSteve — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 17:59:03 +0000

I like it; Nokia buys Palm, Microsoft buys RIM, and Dell buys Motorola. While they try to integrate their purchases Apple will continue to leap frog the handset industry and begin eying other industries.

By: TowerTone

TowerTone — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 17:54:31 +0000

I would rather Sony buy them.
Then their name would be 'Palm Phillips-Sony Treo'.
That would be one sexy sounding phone!

By: Troy

Troy — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 17:52:20 +0000

I have a better idea.. Nokia, start making “Made for iPod and iPhone” products, it’s the only way you are going to survive.

By: Ray

Ray — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 17:38:20 +0000

These anal-ists never seem to be working for the right people. Nokia and Apple needs to hire these guys the anal-ists seem to know exactly how to spend their monies.

just my $0.02