Palm Should Make Android Phone, License Synergy to Samsung

In an interview yesterday with The New York Times Palm’s chairman and CEO, Jon Rubinstein, defended the little smart phone company that could against giants like Apple, BlackBerry, and Samsung, arguing that while Palm needs to scale quickly (read: add more carriers) it can still thrive in this fast-growing category. As I expected, he had some harsh words for Android and its partners.

Android, and the Droid in particular, are designed for the techie audience. We are doing a more general product that helps people live their lives seamlessly.

Ouch. Here that, Droid owners? Rubinstein just called you nerds. I agree that the Motorola Droid isn’t as elegant or user friendly as the Pre or Pixi, but Palm’s CEO seems to be glossing over the fact that services like HTC Sense and Motoblur are adding Palm’s “seamlessness” on top of of the Android OS. Palm likes to tout its Synergy technology for linking your contacts and offering layered calendars, but HTC’s and Motorola’s solutions provide similar functionality, and on devices that have access to over 10,000 apps (compared to Palm’s 300.)

I’ve suggested this somewhat in jest on Twitter, but this time I’m serious. Palm should make its own Android phone. I also think Palm should seriously consider licensing its Synergy technology and UI to Android phone makers who need help in the software department, including Samsung.

If you look at a phone like the HTC HD2, you could barely tell that it runs Windows Mobile at first glance. So why couldn’t Palm bring its multitasking friendly activity card interface and Synergy technology to the Android platform? I’m not saying that Palm should abandon the webOS, just that it needs to branch out to another platform.

In the same NYTimes interview, Palm’s Rubinstein made the case for not going this route, extolling the virtues of a single entity controlling all parts of the value chain.

“The companies that will deliver the best products are the ones that integrate the whole experience — the hardware, the software and the services — and aren’t getting one piece from here and one piece from there and trying to bolt it all together.”

I would agree that the Android ecosystem’s fragmentation is an issue, but the fully integrated business model doesn’t guarantee success. While it’s certainly working well for Apple, many see BlackBerry as falling behind because its software isn’t keeping up with the hardware. In Palm’s case, one could argue that the software is better than the hardware.

That brings me to the second part of my plan for Palm. License Synergy and your UI to Android phone makers who could use all the software help they could get. I briefly played with the Android-powerd Samsung Behold II, and that neat little 3D cube interface and TouchWiz don’t exactly rival the depth of HTC Sense or Motoblur. I couldn’t think of a better shot in the arm for Samsung than a Synergy-based Android device. And I’m sure Palm would be paid handsomely for its efforts. In fact, if I were Samsung I’d acquire Palm and make the company my premier software house.

If Palm chose to go the licensing route for Synergy, it could also partner with the likes of Dell and Acer, both of which are expected to introduce Android-based phones in the U.S. So Palm could continue to make its own hardware to deliver the best of both worlds, and at the same time it could its extend its brand through licensing.

Sounds like a winning formula to me. What do you think?