Will Palm Pre become HP Pre? (Palm/Wikipedia)

While it’s a bit sad that Palm would again be no longer an independent company, it’s still good news — as what my colleague Joey Alarilla tweeted. Learning that Palm would soon be in the hands of HP, a leading creator of a wide range of IT products, made me feel that the PDA and smart phone pioneer would not just fade away as some critics predicted.

Maybe the webOS-powered Palm Pre and its successors would eventually reach and be a hit in the Philippine shores. HP, after all, is a global company.

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MakaPalm learned about the announcement in an entry on the official Palm blog, which said the highly anticipated webOS-based phone will be available in the US in Sprint stores, as well as at Best Buy, Radio Shack, and select Wal-Mart stores.

More info are available at Sprint’s Palm Pre page. We wonder when will Palm release a GSM version that can be used here in the Philippines.

Palm Pre is the first phone to run on Palm webOS, the handheld computing pioneer’s new operating system. Palm introduced the webOS and its first phone on January 8 (US time) at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada.

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It’s almost midnight here in Manila, Philippines, and by the time we wake up tomorrow morning, the World Wide Web would probably be full of reports and comments on the new operating system that Palm is expected to announce at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.

Earlier reports from CrunchGear and other blogs say a new “iPhone-like” device running on the new OS called Nova will also be announced at the event. “The new phone will have a full QWERTY keyboard that will slide down under a portrait-oriented touchscreen,” the report says, adding that it could also play media and would of course have Palm’s calendar, email, and contact function.

I love my Palm Centro –  I got one while I training in Singapore for my new job with Yahoo! Philippines — but I wish it had WiFi capability and a better camera. It looks like “Palm’s newness” would satisfy such desires.

Mobileburn says the Palm Nova phone could also feature a high-resolution camera, which, along with Wi-Fi, is on the top of my wishlist for new features.  Hopefully, the new Palm phone would also be able to run old Palm programs and databases.

I’m one of those loyal Palm fans who would really be happy to see it on the top again with its long-overdue OS upgrade. I believe Matthew Miller of ZDNet is correct in saying there are “a ton of people that want to see Palm succeed.”

Palm is, after all, the brand that brought us the wonderful little handheld computer called PalmPilot, which eventually evolved into what I call an all-in-one device: a cellphone, personal digital assistant, alarm clock, portable MP3 and video player, digital camera, ebook reader and ‘game and watch’ rolled into one. And with the new OS, I hope Palm would resurrect Foleo.

With tomorrow’s announcement, I hope Palm could prove that it is, as I’d been insisting, “not a dying platform.” It’s Palm’s time to shine again.

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From sixth place last month, the Philippines is now fifth among the countries in terms of ad requests, with 2.8% of all Admob requests originating from mobile phones here.

Based on the reports’ Philippines Handset Data, the texting capital of the world remains a Nokia country, as 63.8% of all ad requests from the Philippines were from Nokia phones. With more than 4% share each, Nokia 3510i, Nokia N70, and Nokia N95 were the top handset models.

Palm did not appear at all in the Philippine data. Palm Centro also dropped from seventh to the 12th place among all mobile phones worldwide that accessed mobile sites serving Admob ads.

With the recent launch of iPhone 3G in the Philippines, mobile web usage here could be expected to grow even more.

Meanwhile, Filipino bloggers interested in monetizing their blogs’ mobile version may want to join Admob. Registration is free.

Image from admobflickr

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Palm has unveiled a new mobile device, the Treo Pro smartphone. The new phone features a one-touch Wi-Fi button, GPS, Windows Mobile 6.1 and a high-resolution flush color touch screen.

Am still looking for more details as the official press release seems to have been pulled out.

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“Who said Palm is dying? Who said mobile users are not interested in Palm’s smartphones anymore? If it so, then why all the fuzz of this Treo Pro?” he added.

It would have been best if this new and high tech offering from Palm was Palm OS-powered. But still, here are Treo Pro’s reported features:

• 400Mhz CPU , but snappy response
• 256MB ROM, 128MB RAM
• Expansion card supports up to 32GB
• 320×320 screen
• WCDMA/EDGE/HSDPA
• WiFi
• GPS
• 2 MP camera
• microUSB connector
• 3.5mm earphone connector
• 1500mah battery
• Bundled apps: Adobe Reader LE, Windows Messenger, Java (Esmertec), Internet Proxy, Telenav, Streaming Media, Sprite backup

If the above specs are true, Treo Pro will be the second Palm device to have integrated WiFi, next only to Treo 800w.

How was this latest “leak” from Palm discovered? According to PalmInfoCenter, WMExperts member scottymomo “poked around Palm’s Learning site and found a[n] unposed flash tutorial of the unannounced new Treo.” In his/her WMExperts post, scottymomo attached some pictures — including the one posted with this entry.

Later, in TreoCentral, a certain nomad2000 posted more pictures and device specs. (Nomad2000 also posted this info at the Chinese forum Treo8.com). Scottymomo then posted additional features and screenshots of the Treo Pro at TreoCentral.

Treo Pro was appears to be the same product earlier called Treo 850 and Palm Drucker.

PalmAddict Asia Editor Andy J. S. wrote this development explains why Palm has reportedly placed orders of up to 5 million units of new different mobile phones to manufacturer Compal Comm: “So these whole shebangs are actually a solid news we can hope to become into a reality.”

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The television commercial shows the different colors and features of Palm’s latest smartphone that has already sold more than a million units.

Below is a video of the said advertisement, which was posted on YouTube by user Palm2401.

Meanwhile, Mobilitysite.com also shared on YouTube a “closer look at Sprint’s Palm Centro,” which it described as “an attractive little device that sells for only $99!”

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“BrightStar had a Soft Launch for the dealers last night [April 3] for the Palm Centro; and will be made available sometime after April 15, with SRP of 17490.00,” Gerald Senolos of Microwarehouse wrote on the forum of Mapalad.org.

Microwarehouse is Palm’s distributor in Manila, while Mapalad is the country’s Palm users’ group.

“Microwarehouse was made aware by Palm Inc, on a very abrupt notice mid of March of the distributorship for Palm Centro; moving forward, Brightstar and Microwarehouse will be working together on the business of Palm Centro here in the Philippines. All devices (Zire22, Tungsten E2, T|X, Treo 680 and 750) by Palm Inc. will still be exclusively available only through Microwarehouse,” Senolos added.

Patrick Mascarinas of Brightstar — a distribution and manufacturing services company — wrote on the same forum that a launch party was held on April 3 at Fiamma Bar Jupiter in Makati.

His message to those who are looking forward to have their own Palm Centro: “Our target date of availability of stocks in the retail channel will be late next week or 3rd week of April, we are already processing the necessary permits for it.”

Palm has sold a million units of Centro in 10 countries in five months.

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Discussions at Mapalad.org, the country’s Palm users group, earlier mentioned that
Gerald Senolos, the local Palm guy here, will attend Mapalad’s eyeball in Makati tonight to answer queries about the Palm Centro, which has not been launched in the Philippines yet.

“I’ll try to bring a surprise…,” Senolos said. “Di ko sure if madala ko two models,” he added.

In a discussion thread entitled “Palm Centro GSM version Hands-On,” at Mapalad.org, Senolos also dropped another hint: “Let me rephrase .. di pala something is coming … sorry… they are coming.”

He earlier posted: “Something is coming … yun lang.” This short remark raised speculations within the palm users group that a new Palm product is lauching here soon.

Mapalad.org member “WaKIM” also posted in the same thread that during the group’s Christmas party, Senolos disclosed that the Palm Centro would come out by February of this year.

Reacting to Senolo’s “something is coming,” danielmaradona, another, member wrote: “Definitely this will be the Centro.”

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With 1.1% share of more than two billion ad impressions, Palm is the eight top device manufacturer worldwide in the AdMob Mobile Metrics Report for December 2007. In the US, Palm is seventh with 2.4% of impressions. It did not appear in the list for that category in the first three Admob Mobile Metrics reports.

“Palm and Symbian devices joined the iPhone in outpacing growth in the AdMob network,” Jason Spero, Admob’s VP for Marketing, said in an e-mail announcing the availability of the report. “Apple iPhone share grew again and we observed a strong ‘gifting’ trend around iPhones for the Christmas holiday,” he noted.

The report did not indicate which Palm smartphones helped it enter Admob’s list.

Nokia remains as the world’s top device manufacturer, while Motorola is still number one in the United States. Motorola KRZR K1c is the top handset model in the US and the world, according to the report.

Admob, which was founded in 2006, describes itself as the “world’s largest mobile advertising marketplace.”

AdMob Mobile Metrics, the company says, “is a new report with market level data.”

“We store and analyze the data from every ad request, impression, and click and use this to optimize ad matching. Every day, we see ad requests from more than 160 countries. Each month, we analyze this data to produce our AdMob Mobile Metrics Report covering manufacturer, device and country-specific data on AdMob’s top four markets by impressions served: US, UK, India and South Africa,” Admob’s description of the report says.

Country level data for Indonesia, the fifth biggest market for AdMob in terms of ad impressions, have been added in the December 2007 report.

There was no mention of the Philippines in the report. MakaPalm, a Philippine-based site, uses Admob to serve advertisements to readers of its mobile version. — Makapalm.com

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