CES 2011 is just a few weeks away, and we’re all assuming (and hoping) that Palm announces some awesome new devices to replace the aging hardware that’s out there right now. At this point, given the current marketshare numbers, what might be needed more than the new hardware is a new consumer mindset pertaining to Palm.

According to the latest numbers from Nielsen, Palm’s marketshare stands at a paltry 1.3% in the United States, and we’d reason that international marketshare is around that, if not lower in countries where Palm products are even available.

With Palm’s market penetration so low, the question weighing heavily on our minds right now is how do Palm and HP turn around their fortunes with webOS – especially if we need to wait some time for new hardware? The answer lies not with rebuilding marketshare. No, the answer is to reboot the public perception and start over. webOS is a fantastic operating system, but it was already fighting an uphill battle against iOS when it launched, and has since been eclipsed by Android and is facing competition for the bottom rung from, of all companies, Microsoft with their turn-the-smartphone-OS-on-its-ear Windows Phone 7.

In this mess of smartphone operating systems, how is Palm to differentiate itself and make the case for why Joe Consumer should buy a webOS phone over an iPhone or Droid? Reboot, reset, and start over. Palm needs to be aggressive with their advertising. It can’t be “We’re still here.” No, the message must be “We are here. This is why we’re awesome.”

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iPhone OS (now iOS) launched on just the iPhone. Android launched on just the G1. webOS launched on just the Pre. While these operating systems all have spread onto multiple devices and show no signs of slowing down. Microsoft, on the other hand, tends to take a different and more aggressive approach to product launches. That was fully evident today with the official unveiling of Windows Phone 7 and its associated hardware. The typography-heavy operating system was present on no fewer than ten new handsets from LG, Samsung, and Dell. Oh, and HTC was there with five (5!) models on hand.

And wow, does all that look nice. We’re particularly jealous of the Dell Venue Pro. And the HTC HD7. And the HTC 7 Pro. The buzz is strong, as Windows Phone 7 is clearly a very strong entrant. Sure, it won’t have copy-paste until next year, and won’t be available in Europe until the end of October, or the USA in early November, but navigation on the demo units was smooth, hardware was solid, and a lot of the apps shown off were pretty darned impressive (especially that gaming magic).

Our pals Phil, Daniel, and George knocked today’s coverage out of New York out of the metaphorical park over at our newly relaunched sister site WPCentral. There you’ll find everything you ever wanted to know (and plenty you didn’t even know you wanted to know) about Windows Phone 7 and all of these fancy-pants handsets. Here’s hoping that after the Palm Pre 2, our friends in Sunnyvale can knock it out of the park with the next handset. Clearly, Microsoft has stepped up to the plate and brought all of their best ammunition.

Oh, and WPCentral already kicked their first post-7 podcast (though their 112th overall). As you’ve likely already surmised, it’s a doozy.

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According to multiple news reports, Microsoft has just agreed to license multiple smartphone-related patents (74 in all, according to the Wall Street Journal), including those involving technology created by Palm.

In fact, the Palm technology is being licensed to Microsoft not by Palm or HP but by Access Co., Ltd., the Japanese company that owns the rights to PalmOS after having acquired Palm spin-off company PalmSource in 2005. (Access’ independence from Palm is notably clear in its having recently developed and marketed Graffiti handwriting technology for Android phones, as we reported in July.)

Microsoft’s new licenses from Access, together with others obtained as part of the same deal from Acacia Research Corporation, may help Microsoft avoid or fight some of the ongoing smartphone-related patent suits being crossfiled all over the world. It is not clear, though, what implications this move by Microsoft may have for Palm itself. It is possible that, under the terms of the licenses and/or because of the original Palm/Palmsource relationship, Microsoft might be less likely or able to bring smartphone patent claims against Palm, and vice versa. It’s certainly a safe bet, though, that Palm retains its own rights to use PalmSource-derived technology now owned by Access, regardless of the Microsoft deal. (PalmSource’s patents can be seen on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office here.)

Sources: Wall Street Journal; InformationWeek (Thanks to Brian for the tip!)

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Jon Rubinstein, the leader of Palm, now a unit of HP (with Rubenstein serving as a Senior Vice President) is listed as number 41 in the 2010 Tech 100 list by T3.com. Last year Rubinstein was ranked at 17th, but due to the Pre not selling as well as had been expected, plus the fact that Palm barely stayed alive long enough to be snapped up by HP, meant that Rubinstein’s ranking suffered accordingly. That said, it doesn’t mean that Mr. Rubinstein can’t rebound next year. Palm is in position with HP to make waves in the technology world, with the PalmPad and new smartphones due early next year, plus webOS 2.0 and a variety of other devices on the way.

Rubenstein was ranked ahead of a number of well-known tech names, including Kevin Rose of Digg (#80), Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales (#59), Michael Dell (#54), and Apple designer Jonathan Ive (#50). There was also only one other HP employee on the list, CFO and interim CEO (at least until Léo Apotheker takes over on a more permanent basis) Catherine Lesjak at ninety-six on the roster. Unsurprisingly, the list was led by Apple CEO Steve Jobs, followed by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, with Google CEO Eric Schmidt sharing third-position with Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

Source: T3.com

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Here’s some of the latest talk from the forums:

• If you’re a Pixi owner and you often encounter performance issues – namely the always annoying "too many cards" issue – then the kind folks over at the webOS Internals group have a solution for you:  a replacement kernel.  Forum members are discussing in this thread about the virtues of installing custom kernels and their preferences in setting up the kernel management software known as Govnah.
• Palm’s next handset release is surely looming just around the corner, and forum members are chatting it up about what they think minimum specs for a flagship level phone should be.  The most popular items include higher-res screens , higher-res cameras, and faster processors.
• A lot has happened during the time that webOS has been on the market, and dawizel1 in the cross-platform chat forum wants to know if anyone’s looking to jump ship to Microsoft’s upcoming Windows Phone 7 platform.
• I personally don’t mind it not being there, but there are plenty of webOS users who have been clamoring for a scroll bar in the browser.  There’s good news for the lot of you, as TIWizard has created a patch that installs a scroll bar that works in both landscape and portrait modes.

We look forward to seeing you in the forums!  Not already a member?  Join us – it’s free!

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“If we don’t talk about it, they’ll forget we ever mentioned it…” Or at least that seems to be the attitude that HP has been displaying towards the Windows 7-powered Slate tablet they unveiled six months ago at CES. Harry McCracken of Technologizer spoke to HP Personal Systems Group CTO Phil McKinney about their tablet plans, and the HP exec said that he wouldn’t be commenting about unreleased tablet products until the Palm acquisition was complete. And then he went on to extol the virtues of webOS over trying to adapt existing operating systems for new uses (Windows 7 onto a tablet).

This “not talking about the Slate” is a major departure for HP, as the device was shown off on stage by none other than Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and featured in several videos on HP’s site. Including one with McKinney. Since then, as Engadget notes, HP has been eerily quiet – breaking out only to put a damper on rumors that the Slate would run webOS: "Don’t believe everything you see online."

So, is Slate dead and to be succeeded by a webOS-powered tablet, perhaps something codenamed Hurricane? That wouldn’t surprise us, though we doubt we’ll know for sure until sometime after the Palm acquisition is wrapped up on July 31st. If Palm and HP really are on an aggressive, 2010 schedule to release a webOS Tablet, let’s hope that they started working to make webOS Tablet-ready quite awhile ago.

Via: Engadget, Source: Technologizer

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As reported by All Things D, one of the men who proved crucial to the development of webOS UI is leaving Palm: Matías Duarte is headed over to Mountain View and taking up an office at Google. As Palm’s Vice President of Human Interface and User Experience, Duarte and his team were responsible by-and-large for making webOS look and behave the way it looks and behave. Presumably, Duarte will be taking a similar role at Google and be working on Android – in fact he held a like position when he worked at Helio and Danger (makers of the Sidekick, since gobbled-up by Microsoft) prior to coming to Palm.

This leaves a big gaping hole at the top of level of Palm’s webOS development team. No matter how fast or multi-tasking an operating system is, it needs to look good and be easy to use to truly succeed (see how fast Android has taken off with newer revisions). With Palm headed into the land of HP this summer, the opportunities for somebody looking to fill that vacancy could be quite tempting. Perhaps Mr. J Allard, formerly of Microsoft, could be talked into being interested?

Either way, we’re sad to see Duarte leaving Palm, especially with such a game-changing move happening with the purchase by HP, and wish him best of luck wherever he lands.

Update: Engadget has confirmed that Duarte will become Google’s "User Experience Director for Android."

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While HP is clearly making an enormous investment in Palm and webOS, don’t think they’re giving up on their other operating systems, most notably Windows Mobile. While their current sales of iPaq devices running Windows Mobile are less than lustrous, we can’t exactly say that Palm sales are moving along gangbusters either. So, we won’t fault HP for wanting to continue on with Windows Mobile alongside Palm webOS. Said HP VP of Strategy and Corporate Development Brian Humphries during the conference call today:

“We intend to continue to be a strategic partner for Microsoft. They’re a huge piece of our business today, and will continue to be so.”

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We’ve seen those “Project Pink” phones floating around for a while now, and they’ve finally come to the surface. Named Kin One and Kin Two, the two phones slot somewhere between the feature phone and the smartphone. To be offered on Verizon and Vodaphone, manufactured by Sharp, and running software from Microsoft, the Kin phones are more social media devices that happen to make calls than smartphones with social media grafted on (ala Motoblur).

The Kins, which seem to be built off of the same guts as the Zune and also seem to run an extension of the Zune OS, are easily the most social networking-oriented phones we’ve seen to date. But where the slot between feature phone and smartphone is a bit hazy. If anything, seeing as they are very much inspired by Microsoft’s acquisition of Danger a few years back, we’d have to say that these suckers are the new Sidekicks. Which, incidentally, Sharp also built.

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It was a hypothetical question we floated a few months back for a Round Table session, but recently it seems that our hypotheticals are moving more towards the realm of reality. Our friends over at Engadget beat us to the punch on this one, and put together a fantastic list and summary of the companies thought to be considering a bid for purchasing Palm, but we thought it’s something that we should ask to our more targeted webOS audience: who do you think should buy Palm? Poll after the break, as are those comments in which you so want to sound off.

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