Palm Pre WebOS said to be “a fading brand”
That was quick. Palm Pre and its WebOS operating system were launched in June, 2009 as a direct competitor to the iPhone. Six months later, declining sales have cast a pall over the brand’s future. One analyst calls it “a fading brand.”
From a research note by Northeast Securities analyst Ashok Kumar, via Om Malik’s GigaOm:
As a fading brand, carriers are likely to see better returns on their promotional and advertising dollars with other vendors…WebOS has negligible smartphone OS share, 0.2 percent per Gartner estimates, and is unlikely to attract any meaningful third-party application support. Palm has bet the farm on webOS and there is a real possibility that they may not achieve critical mass.
When you’re in a market with highly aggressive innovators (like Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android), ruled ultimately by powerful third-parties (like the carriers), the margin for error in brand strategy is as thin as a sim card.
