Why Microsoft should forget about Yahoo and buy Palm

The article suggests that Microsoft should spend 1-2 billion USD to buy Palm because the Pre is an innovative gadget. The unanswered question is: would it be worth that much to Microsoft to acquire a mobile phone company that has completely lost its relevance and marketshare outside North America, and has little to do with Microsoft's business-oriented Windows Mobile strategy?

Palm under Microsoft would become the "Zune phone" -- a vertical integration experiment detached from the goals of the rest of the company. But didn't Microsoft already buy Danger (maker of Sidekick/HipTop/whatever) not long ago? It's possible Danger is already working on something along those lines, but with more Windows integration than Palm's web-oriented Linux+WebKit device provides. Where would Palm fit in?

It's a little early for the critics to shower praise on Palm's new device. Right now, the Palm Pre is just a demo. It doesn't even have a release date - according to Engadget it is supposed to be out in the "first half of 2009." And yet this columnist declares the Pre's UI is better than the iPhone's. How about holding off on statements like that until you have actually used one of these devices.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/13/palm-pre-everything-you-e...

The problem isn't that Microsoft can't create good products. The problem is that its priorities can be different from the priorities of many users. Microsoft concerns itself with its ecosystem more than anything. Apple doesn't do this and Palm is splitting from their's with the Pre.

Apple's attitude is, "we created something great and you should want to develop for it and if you're a user with legacy stuff, you should just migrate". That's fine most of the time with consumers. Likewise, their programmers have gotten used to making little tweaks when a new version of OS X comes out to make sure things work well. Microsoft, on the other hand, has tried to keep everything working even if the company that created an add-on is now defunct. It's chained them up. Something relied on a bad behavior of IE so that behavior must be kept even if it is sub-optimal for many things.

The Pre looks cool and I'm getting one as soon as it comes out (Sprint customer who doesn't want to switch carriers). However, it's completely new. It wouldn't be a platform to move Windows Mobile users to. Palm has created something that looks really great. But Microsoft really needs to decide if it's willing to let go of the legacy compatibility that Windows Mobile has going for it and require the people who have made Windows Mobile applications to suffer a dead end and port to a new platform.

It's easy when you're at the bottom to embrace change - you don't have developers and customers to loose. Microsoft has a lot to loose. Break compatibility and people can migrate to competitors as easily as they can migrate to your new model. Of course, the other side is that if you don't make the changes necessary, you can start loosing people because your product gets old and kludgy.

Microsoft doesn't need Palm. It already has the talent and the resource to build a great mobile platform. It just needs the will to start over. They are in a tough position, traditionally they have stayed away fro mobile hardware because of pressure from the hardware OEMs. This might change because of their success (sort off) with Zune and xbox 360. I think Plam has a great strategy about building apps using web technology and using a good browser (webkit) Microsoft should forget about their mobile browser and adopt webkit also. They should put aside the ego and accept their browser and mobile OS is not on part with their competitor. From what I have been hearing about Windows 7 so far it seems that they can still write good software.

Why should huge companies merge? What's wrong with a lot of small companies with different visions? It keeps the market agile and innovative.

No! Palm is good. Don't ruin it!

I think Nokia would be a much better fit for Palm.

Nokia are desperately lacking a next-generation smartphone platform, they have plenty of hardware experience, they have relatively little penetration in the US where the Palm brand could potentially help them gain marketshare, and the ability to use the strong Nokia brand in other markets would help sales of any Palm phones.

My major issue with this concept is the added expense of integrating the Palm OS and Windows Mobile. That's no small undertaking and it would find Microsoft stuck between them until it could complete the integration.

It wasn't all that long ago that many Palm branded phones being sold were actually running Windows Mobile. I suspect that commentators are way too quick to write off the Windows Mobile platform most cause they don't really know much about it. Sure the UI is a little clumsy compared to the iphone but I don't see what will make it so difficult to incorporate most of the techniques in to the OS. There are actually a huge number of apps developed for the platform and still it has a large user base around the world. I suspect the much of the reason for the platform being written of is their lack of a mobile carrier 'deal' in the US.

Wasn't the whole reason that Microsoft wanted Yahoo was its patent portfolio?

A better idea for microsoft would be to get back into writing great software. Their main business as always been software. If they can do this they don't have to buy anyone. Buying these companies doesn't mean they'll get all talent with them.