Palm Plans to Rival Apple's iPhone

With the vast majority of industry insiders expecting positive results once Apple releases their new iPhone to the public, many multimedia phone companies have recognized the Apple threat and are attempting to avoid any competition against the technological giant.

Palm Inc., a hand-held computer making company, has announced their plans to challenge Apple in the hopes of putting an end to their stranglehold on the rest of the industry.

While representatives at Palm were quick to decline extensive commentary on their retaliatory devices, the company did reveal that a former Apple computer engineer, Paul Mercer, has been working extensively on a new line of products that is expected to attract a significant number of Apple customers. (Source: news.com.com)

While the iPhone is still many months away from its release date, the interface designs and easy manipulation has already sparked a great deal of concern for potential competitors.

Palm announced the need to implement a new lineup of devices that directly rivaled the iPhone, after acknowledging that their current hybrid phone-organizers (known as Palm "smart phones") could not compete against the iPhone alone. (Source: nytimes.com)

While Palm has had considerable control over a significant share of the hand-held computer market in the past, the company has since lost most of its influence to other major brand names like Sony, Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia and Microsoft.

Within the industry, Palm's operating system software is now widely considered aging and in desperate need of a fundamental revision.

Last year, in an effort to combat their recent struggles, Palm adopted Microsoft's Windows Mobile software for one version of their smart phone, the Treo.

In another example of the global impact that the iPhone is already having on the international multimedia phone market, the Prada phone company based out of South Korea is now offering new features on all of their current and future devices that are supposedly very similar to the same features found on the iPhone. (Source: nytimes.com)

Analysts fully expect that the release of the iPhone will force the entire industry to eventually shift its focus from hardware to software design.