January 8, 2009

iPhone Dominance Assured

By: Damir Marusic

Today at CES, Palm released their long-awaited iPhone killer. But though the device seemed promising, it definitely looks like they’ll be fighting an uphill battle:

The biggest unknown is price, which went unmentioned during the demo. My assumption is that Palm (PALM) would try to take market share by coming in significantly lower than the $200 or so Apple wants for its iPhone. But when I ran that theory by Palm CEO Ed Colligan, he looked at me liked I’d peed on his rug. “Why would we do that when we have a significantly better product,” he asked, then walked away.

Right, good luck with that.

That’s the trouble when your competitor has beat you to the market by almost two years: there’s little room for you to recoup your R&D investment by gouging early adopters.