Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein isn't looking to the stars for his comeback strategy. The inventor of the iPod was quoted last week saying he had never used an iPhone and that he doesn't pay that much attention to Apple. Was he kidding? If his strategy for competing with the industry's number one app phone is to ignore it, stock holders ought to have his head.
Don't get me wrong; I love Palm. I have owned and used them since the Palm V and I like my Treo 680 just fine. I also think the Pre is an extremely handsome unit and worthy competitor to iPhone, and now that Palm is signing carrier deals with AT&T and Verizon, it has a fighting chance. But how can a company claim to compete with something if its CEO has never even laid hands on one? And as the "father of the iPod," as the article puts it, it's hard to imagine Rubinstein not keeping tabs on the device some credit with Apple's resurgence in recent years.
By the way, today's date--01/11/10--is an anagram. So if Rubinstein uses numerology to develop a winning strategy for regaining market share, this might be a good sign.