How did Palm manage to schedule its Pixi handset announcement for the same day as Steve Jobs’ triumphant return? It’s not like Palm didn’t know Apple’s date, but they went ahead anyway and got trounced, once again.
That makes Palm two-for-two in having its introductions overshadowed by Apple’s. You’d think someone would have their office packed by now. But, since this must have been approved at the very top of Palm, well, you know.
Sure, Palm got coverage, which is good. But, why would Palm not hold off and just let Apple have its day? Palm would have gotten much greater coverage by holding off a week or beating Apple to the punch by a week or so.
This happened in June with the Palm Pre announcement, too. That time, Palm got there first, barely, but still managed to have its initial sales directly compared to sales of the newly-introduced iPhone 3GS. No matter how well the Pre did, it looked bad in comparison. Totally predictable.
A wise marketing friend suggests Palm needed to leave a one-month window either side of Apple’s traditional WWDC announcement date to avoid the Apple reality distortion field.
There is another traditional announcement date on Apple’s calendar, and that’s early September for iPods and iTunes, gearing up for Christmas sales.
This time Palm didn’t throw a big announcement for the Pixi, just a blog post and, I presume, some press releases and interviews. The phone doesn’t even have a ship date yet, but for some reason Palm just had to announce it on the same day as Apple’s party.
Another friend lamented online someplace that he was sad Apple’s so-so new products could wipe away something as neat as the Pixi. While I don’t agree that Apple is as bad or the Pixi as good as he thinks, I certainly hope Palm comes to its senses.
David Coursey, proudly one of PC World’s top 10 Internet blowhards, tweets as @techinciter and can be contacted via his Web site.