Here at CES 2009 Palm debuted the Pre, their new iPhone rival device with a snazzy slider keyboard and large touchscreen. The reviews were overwhelmingly positive and this sent Palm’s stock soaring yesterday 34% as the company’s sagging prospects were revived as fast as the tech blogs started raving. I’m anxious to look at the price movement intra day – eg how soon after the launch did the stock rise? Efficient market theory suggests that new information is incorporated almost immediately into stock pricing and this is an interesting test of that hypothesis.
More CES Coverage at Technology Report
Joe Duck 
Palm was the innovator and originally did well but was later thought to have shot itself in its corporate foot by announcing new models that were still in the pipeline, thereby cutting into the sales of existing models.
It seems a 34 percent stock bump just might mean the investors have forgiven Palm for its former unwise actions.
Hello Joe Duck,
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Is it just me, or the does Palm Pre not even look that good? I hate to be so shallow, but when it comes to my mobile gadgets, I gotta have them sleek and sexy. The Palm Pre is just kinda… round. And fat.
On the other hand, releasing a product that was drastically different from their previous efforts was absolutely necessary. The new OS was a good call, and I’m sure they’ll gain back some marketshare from RIM and Apple. 34% is crazy-high for a stock increase based solely on how people are talking about a product online, though. Not sure it’ll be able to maintain that unless Palm stocks were really, really low to begin with.
Brian I like the idea of the “real” keyboard as well as a large touchscreen tho agree it’s not a stylish as an iPhone and also that we have no record of stability of the NOVA OS or other issues. I think the stock bump was logical based on all the CES positive feedback which meant that Palm went from “hopeless” to “hopeful” literally within minutes of the positive reviews.
I wonder if ‘real keyboard’ is a term that will evolve as us over-forty fuddyduddies age and the new generation that grew up using two thumbs on a minute keyboard to be very ‘real’ indeed.
The Pre was a good product. Now that the so called analysts went sour on teh stock it’s time for me to buy.