Palm slaps down board member over iPhone comments

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 11 Mar 2009 at 10:58

Palm has slapped down one of its own board members, after he claimed that early adopters of the iPhone would jump ship when the Pre was launched.

Speaking in an interview, Roger McNamee, a Palm director and co-founder of Elevation Partners, the investment firm which owns 39% of Palm, claimed the Pre would devastate sales of the iPhone.

"You know the beautiful thing: 29 June, 2009, is the two-year anniversary of the first shipment of the iPhone. Not one of those people will still be using an iPhone a month later," he told Bloomberg.

"Think about it. If you bought the first iPhone, you bought it because you wanted the coolest product on the market. Your two-year contract has just expired. Look around. Tell me what they're going to buy."

Bubbling over with confidence, he also claimed the "The Pre is going to be a million times - well, not a million times - several times faster than the iPhone," and that "The Pre is going to run rings around [Apple] on the web."

Though these comments probably cheered investors, they didn't sit well with Palm which has issued a statement in its recent SEC filing "withdrawing them."

"The statement in the second paragraph of the article that 'not one' person who bought an Apple iPhone on the first shipment date 'will still be using an iPhone a month' after the two-year anniversary of that day is an exaggerated prediction of consumer behaviour pattern and is withdrawn," the filing notes.

It also goes on to say: "With respect to the statements in the tenth paragraph of the transcript [regarding the Pre's speed] the Palm Pre is still under development and it is premature to state the speed at which the device accesses the web or the relative speed of the Palm Pre compared to the smartphone products of competitors."