A lot of people are rightfully questioning whether the Palm Pre truly would fit in their current workflow or lifestyles.
Not surprisingly, the answer is most likely: NO.
After all, the Pre is an initial cut at a new product line, and it has much more in common with the older Treo models than, say, the Palm Centro (yep, remember the three-parter here, here, and here?), that darling of mass marketing and sales that has kept both Sprint [S] and Palm [PALM] viable for so long.
So, what then, is the upgrade path for Palm Centro owners?
Enter the Eos: a GSM-capable smartphone with a smaller form factor, akin to the Centro (supposedly), and headed for the AT&T [T] subscriber base… which means that Sprint customers will be left out once again, unless the rumors are false and/or there will be some heated negotiations between now and the launch date– perhaps any time in the 2H 2009? If even half of the Engadget tid-tad-bits are somewhat correct or near the mark, the Eos may become the real game changer for Palm against its competitors; but it will also distance Palm from its closest partner, Sprint.
Some people have speculated that the Eos will be PalmOS based, due to some unusual wording seen on briefing notes leaked to the public, but based upon Palm’s need to overhaul their smartphones’ software and keep up to date, combined with the cold relations between Access and Palm over Garnet OS, it is unlikely that Palm will issue the Eos with PalmOS/Garnet. Instead, it will probably be based upon the webOS platform first seen with the Palm Pre.
{ 1 trackback }