The Motley Fools Call Palm Pre DOA, I Call Them Fools
The stock market experts and radio show hosts of the Motley Fool published an article today claiming that the Palm Pre, though fully featured and well designed, may be dead on arrival. This information is based off of a survey of 4,292 adult smartphone buyers by ChangeWave Research. The survey found that only 4% of smartphone buyers plan on purchasing the Pre, in contrast to 37% of them planning on purchasing a BlackBerry or iPhone. There are a few problems with this.
First off, the survey is of smartphone buyers, whom I'm going to assume, are business-type individuals that aren't necessarily up on the technology of emerging cell phones. The survey completely ignores the consumer market, of which the Palm Pre is also targeting. I am going to buy the Pre, and I have only ever owned "feature phones" up until I get my hands on some webOS goodness. My friends are all dumb phone buyers and have never owned a BlackBerry. Keep in mind, the majority of iPhone users were not smartphone users before converting to the iPhone.
The Palm Pre is not a smartphone buyer device; it is a Pro-sumer device that is going to be sold to everyone, not just the crackberry owning, iPhone toting individuals who are more than likely already very please with their devices. The Palm Pre is not targeting current smartphone users; it's targeting feature phone users who want to step up to something better such as Synergy and a fully functioning cloud feature. I am willing to bet every single Sprint subscribe will be more than willing to switch to the Palm Pre; and at the same time, I can't name one person who I know that isn't happy with their iPhone or BlackBerry.
The survey is flawed because they asked people who already own smartphones. They should have asked the pro-sumers and internet savy folks like myself and my friends. Also, how can you ask if users will switch to a device they've never even held and has no known release date? The survey is flawed, and if the Motley Fools put a lot of stock into it, they are indeed fools.
[Via The Motley Fool]