I recently wrote a rather glowing article about Palm’s announcements at CES this week. I still agree with everything I said, including my final comment, that it was a marketing mistake to make those announcements when it did.
Remember that quote that Apple fans love to repeat over and over again, back when Ed Colligan was running Palm? “PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.” Ed was out of a job not long after that blunder.
Well, it seems like Palm still needs PR advice in general, which is probably the downside of hiring a CEO who worked for Apple Engineering.
Jon Rubinstein, according to several accounts, said in an interview this week that not only does he not own an iPhone; he’s never even used one.
This kind of statement is dumb on so many levels.
FIrst, the likelihood that Rubinstein has NEVER used an iPhone at all is about 2%. So, most likely he’s full of crap. Not that that’s a bad thing to be during an interview. You just need to be full of crap for the right reasons.
Second, statements like this always come off as arrogant, and the last thing Palm wants to be in its current weakened position is arrogant. This reminded me so much of all those guitar players in the eighties who claimed they never listened to Eddie Van Halen. Give me a break.
Third, if your goal is to design the best phones possible, wouldn’t you at least want to know what your competition was up to? Wouldn’t you want, as a CEO, to know exactly why the experience of your phone is so much better than the competition’s, so you could talk about it eloquently during an interview? Steve Jobs didn’t just use Treos, Blackberrys, etc. before his company released the iPhone. He put up a slide during his keynote and explained exactly why they sucked compared to his phone.
Fourth, and most importantly, you handed every tech journalist the wrong headline: “Rubinstein claims to have never used an iPhone.” Instead of “John Rubinstein shows off new Pre phone, Verizon partnership at CES.” Rubinstein actually put the competition’s name into the headline, instead of his own.
Most of what Palm is doing right at the moment is a very methodical mimicking of its biggest competitor. Denying this is silly. The only thing stopping Palm from being more successful right now are the kinds of bungled PR moves demonstrated during this interview. They should pilfer a high-level exec from Apple’s PR/Marketing department as soon as possible.
So what’s the appropriate response to that question? “I played around with an iPhone for a little, though I’ve never owned one. At Palm we approach our design…” Just admit the obvious, change the subject, and move on. Doesn’t this guy ever watch politicians?
