Palm may be captain of the Pre, but to do well against your competitors you need a strong team behind you. The folks at Palm Infocenter are taking it on themselves to size up the strong third-party team that Palm is assembling for the launch of their new device.
In part 1 of their analysis, they first refer to Palm President and CEO Ed Colligan's announcement of multiple third-party party software partners for the new webOS. This was detailed in the later chapters of the CES 2009 presentation for the Pre. As we saw with the iPhone, having strong third-party software can make the difference between lifelong loyalty or early abandonment for another device. In the article they focus on Sprint, Facebook, Google, and Pandora Internet Radio, detailing their place in the market and contribution to webOS and Palm.
To summarize the points:
- Sprint is the limited-time exclusive US carrier of the Pre and a long time partner for Palm, making them the ideal choice for the launch. Sprint already has a good base of developers, in no small part from the Titan OS and other handhelds, and so it should be easy to bring some strong software to the new device.
- Facebook already can connect natively with Palms, Blackberries, and iPhones. Naturally, the new Synergy feature will play a big part in webOS connectivity with Facebook, and will allow it to more approach full desktop connectivity with Facebook and Facebook apps.
- Google will play a big part of the webOS universal search feature, as well as google maps interfacing with the GPS feature with turn-by-turn directions. The fast hardware of the Pre should make these features quick and user-friendly.
- Pandora, the popular internet music streaming service, is already well into development for the webOS platform. And although they can't background run on the iPhone, the true multitasking capability of the Pre will offer a new level of freedom for your music. As well, they state that it is possible Pandora will allow you to buy from Amazon music from your Pre, much like iTunes on the iPhone.
For more details on all of Palm's big partners, check out the articles below:
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