Palm responds to Apple's veiled threat: "we have the tools necessary to defend ourselves"

from Engadget by Thomas Ricker

We've been waiting for this. Ever since Tim Cook made his non-specific, veiled threats in response to a direct question about how the Palm Pre "almost directly emulates the kind of touch interface" found on the iPhone, the entire tech community has waited for the next move. Now Lynn Fox, a Palm spokesperson has stepped into the fray. In a response given to Digital Daily and presumably crafted by a team of lawyers over the 2 days since the Apple analyst call, Lynn says the following: 

Palm has a long history of innovation that is reflected in our products and robust patent portfolio, and we have long been recognized for our fundamental patents in the mobile space. If faced with legal action, we are confident that we have the tools necessary to defend ourselves. 

The gauntlet is thrown. Now, will Apple risk the ire of a million new and middle-aged fanboys and crush Palm's Cinderella comeback by forcing the Pre into some state of unreleased legal limbo? Or will Rubinstein and Jobs quietly sort it out over a yoghurt parfait in some strip mall in The Valley? Oh boy, this is going to be good.

Statshot: More Than 10 Million Wiis Sold in 2008

from GigaOM by Om Malik

Despite my addiction to The Age of Empires (and the rest of the franchise), I’m not much of a gamer. Nevertheless, last year a friend of mine let me borrow hisNintendo Wii and after a couple of hours spent playing some of its simpler games, I was hooked. Apparently I’m not alone, for nearly 10.17 million Americans bought a Wii in 2008, according to The NPD Group, and there are more than15 million Wii consoles in U.S. homes. Also in 2008, another 9.95 million bought the Nintendo DS portable system.

What a sharp contrast to the continuing struggles of Sony and its PlayStation 3 game system. Nintendo’s focus on simplicity and experience has allowed it to expand well beyond the gamer crowd to capture nearly 55 percent of the next-generation console market. Apple has made similar strides in the non-corporate smartphone market with the iPhone. Now if Nintendo and Apple could just find a way to work together, instead of acting like the bitter rivals they’ve become.

Circuit City fails to be wanted, will now be liquidated

from Engadget by Darren Murph

Even Circuit City's CEO admitted that liquidation was a very real possibility if a sale of the company didn't occur by January 16th, and needless to say, time's up. According to a breaking report from theAP, the once colossal electronics retailer will indeed be forced to liquidate, which should bring happy times for bargain hunters and sad times for employees. Now that details are starting to flow in, we're told that it will liquidate 567 of its US stores after failing to secure a buyer or refinancing deal. For those who care, Great American Group LLC, Hudson Capital Partners LLC, SB Capital Group LLC and Tiger Capital Group LLC have been chosen as liquidators.

Palm did what Nokia, RIM, and Microsoft couldn’t: build a better experience than Apple

from Scobleizer -- Tech geek blogger by Robert Scoble

When I sat down at the beginning of the Palm Pre announcement press conference I was expecting to watch the death of a company. Palm? Give me a break. It would NEVER do anything interesting and Nokia, Microsoft, RIM, and expecially Apple were about to kick it into the deathbin of history.

I was wrong. WAY WAY WAY wrong.

Palm just did what Nokia and Microsoft and RIM couldn’t do: deliver a better experience than Steve Jobs did.

“Give me a break Scoble, you are drinking the shiny new object Koolaid,” I can hear you saying.

This is why I didn’t post a blog about it all day, even though everyone else did. I wanted to let the Koolaid wear off. I went back to the Palm booth again tonight just to make sure what I saw this morning was real.

I learned even more stuff that just blew me away.

From Palm? Give me a break!

Nokia’s devices that I saw last month just suddenly seem so lame.

Why? Well, when you look at the Nokia N97, which will be out at about the same time as the Palm Pre, you see that they also have a nice UI, but it falls apart when you click down into apps and try to do things. Palm doesn’t fall apart. Click down and you keep getting shocked.

Palm’s bet on social networking integration is a game changer. Click into a contact and you see people’s Facebook info and other info from their social networks. That is huge and not many people will get it.

Palm’s web browser is easier to get around than the iPhone’s is. Dave Winer will like some of the touches that were integrated here.

Are you surfing the web and alert comes up? Your web page doesn’t disappear. Really nice touch.

Are you a developer? Everything is based on standard webstuff. Javascript. Et al.

Cut, copy, and paste. Anymore to say?

How Apple centric is the new Palm team? Well, Chris McKillop is director of Software at Palm. He worked on the iPhone team (showed me pictures of me and my son buying iPhones at the Palo Alto store). One of the PR people at Palm did PR at Apple. Jonathan Rubinstein, who runs the Palm Pre team and led off the announcement, was a key person in development of the iPod and lots of people followed him from Apple to Palm, I heard from several people today.

Here’s some videos.

Peter Skillman, director of new product experience at Palm, shows the out of box experience and how the device’s size compares to the iPhone.
A piece of the announcement event today where they showed off some of Palm Pre’s web features.
Here’s another video of Peter showing off what he thinks the coolest things about the Pre are.

Anyway, the bottom line is Palm has a real winner here. It shows that you can never count a company out. Even one that looks like it’s already out of the game.

Ed: Where's the recurring revenue? Will Sprint share? Apps share? Music share?

• Match iPhone cool: Zoom/unzoom, touch accelerometer, Wi-Fi
  
• Beat iPhone: contact integration, simpler Palm Pre apps, better camera, keyboard
• Weakness: Sprint, music
• Unknown: video, execution on delivery

Winner - iPhone and Palm

Loser- Nokia, Motorola, WinMob, RIM 

Despite Weak Season, Online Spending Trends Outperform Brick-And-Mortar Across Several Key Retail Categories

Sport & Fitness Ranks as Top-Growing Online Category for the Season

RESTON, VA, January 2, 2009 – ...

According to comScore, the top growing online product category for the season was Sport & Fitness, which grew 18 percent versus year ago. The category continues to benefit from consumers’ focus on health and fitness and consumers feeling more comfortable purchasing higher-priced fitness equipment, such as treadmills and elliptical machines, online. The second fastest-growing category was Video Games, Consoles & Accessories, which grew 14 percent on continued demand for popular consoles, such as the Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Apparel & Accessories, the only other product category with positive online growth, generated higher sales as a result of retailers’ aggressive discounting and promotions, and helped by unfavorable weather across much of the country.

 

Top Online Product Categories for 2008 Holiday Season Online Non-Travel  Spending Excludes Auctions and Large Corporate Purchases Dec. 1-24, 2008 vs. Nov. 26 – Dec. 19, 2007 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore, Inc.
Product Category	Y/Y Percent Change
Sport & Fitness	18%
Video Games, Consoles & Accessories	14%
Apparel & Accessories	4%
Books & Magazines	-1%
Consumer Electronics	-5%
Flowers, Greetings & Gifts	-7%
Toys	-7%
Computer Hardware	-8%
Home, Garden & Furniture	-14%
Event Tickets	-18%
Jewelry & Watches	-24%
Computer Software (Excl. PC Games)	-24%
Office Supplies	-30%
Music, Movies & Videos	-32%

 

A comparison to the MasterCard Advisors’ data revealed that the online trends in several product categories outperformed overall consumer spending in those categories, including:

·          Sales of Apparel & Accessories up 4 percent online, compared to a 19-21 percent decline in overall sales of the category.

·          Consumer Electronics declined 5 percent online and Home, Garden and Furniture declined 14 percent online. This compares to a 26-percent decline in overall sales of Electronics/ Appliances.

·          Jewelry & Watches declined 24 percent online, compared to a 34-percent decline in overall sales of Luxury Goods (including Jewelry & Watches).

 

“For an online holiday shopping season that recorded a disappointing 3-percent decline in sales, a positive note is that e-commerce trends outperformed overall consumer spending in several product categories, which is to say that e-commerce continued to capture an increasing share of consumers’ wallet,” said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni. “Clearly, 2008 was an extremely challenging time for many retailers, and the beginning of 2009 may not be much better. But when the consumer economy eventually does rebound, e-commerce is poised to benefit from its emergence as an important consumer sales channel.”

 

Wealthiest Households Spent More Online this Holiday Season

comScore also analyzed non-travel e-commerce spending by household income segment for the holiday shopping season, revealing that growth in online spending only occurred (up 7 percent) within households making at least $100,000 in annual income, while lower income segments logged significant declines in spending. Those households earning less than $50,000 per year appear to be the most affected by the current economic environment, with their online spending declining by 13 percent versus year ago.

 

2008 Holiday Season vs. Corresponding Days* in 2007 Online Non-Travel Spending Excludes Auctions and Large Corporate Purchases Dec. 1-24, 2008 vs. Nov. 26 – Dec. 19, 2007 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore, Inc.
Annual Household Income	Growth Rate
$0-$49,999	-13%
$50,000-$99,999	-8%
$100,000+	7%

 

About comScore

comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital marketing intelligence. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.

Holiday Season Results

December 30th, 2008 by Josh Greene, VP, Member Services, Shop.org 
Posted in Retail Thoughts | SORO & E-Holiday Mood Study | holiday

First off, many thanks to you if you participated in last week’s Shop.org and Forrester joint survey of holiday season results.  In all, 84 companies repsonded to our anonymous follow up survey of how topline sales fared this holiday season vs.  last.

We were happy to see that, contrary to the prevailing rather gloomy impression out there, many retailers this holiday season actually did garner increases in topline results compared with Holiday ‘07. Overall, almost two-thirds of retailers surveyed indicated that their sales increased vs. last holiday season.  Indeed, 40% of retailers surveyed reported that topline sales increased more than 10% from Holiday ‘07.

Multi-channel and medium and larger size retailers tended to fare best this holiday season.  That said, fully half of online only retailers also reported at least some increase in YOY holiday sales.  Retailers noted that, while November was slower than anticipated for some, consumers got serious about online holiday purchases in December — we believe no doubt partly encouraged by abundant free shipping offers and discounts.

See the full, aggregated results here and let us know your thoughts.  There are some fascinating comments in the PowerPoint.