Palm Needs One Good Phone - BusinessWeek

Palm’s last chance?  See the full article for more details.

The moment of truth will come at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. Sources say Palm will finally unveil an oft-delayed new operating system, as well as the first in a new family of smartphones. The company won't discuss details, but McNamee says the products will be different from anything on the market. While RIM's BlackBerrys excel at e-mail and iPhones are tops for entertainment, he says Palm will create devices that help consumers easily meld work and play.

Palm doesn't have to vanquish RIM or Apple to succeed. With smartphones expected to balloon from 10% to 50% of the overall 1 billion-unit cell-phone market, Palm could triple its revenues by winning just a single point of the aggregate market. Indeed, McNamee and Rubinstein say they're modeling their plan on the resurrection of Apple, in which marquee products led to financial success. "We hold Apple up as the example of how to do this," says McNamee.

Palm Needs One Good Phone - BusinessWeek