CES Day 1: Webware wrapup (mostly Palm)

Palm's plan for application development on the new Palm Pre will help determine its fate.

(Credit: Palm)

Defying expectations, Day 1 of CES was not dull. Palm stole the show with a new and important product. And last night, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made an interesting announcement about Windows.

Here are the Webware-related CES highlights from the first official day of the conference:

• The Palm announcement at CES--a new OS and new hardware--was everything people had been hoping for, and more. Palm WebOS looks solid, and the UI looks fun and easy. The device, the Pre, is pretty slick, with both the pebble-in-the-stream smoothness of the iPhone and a slide-out keyboard. One thing that's less clear: how will developers get their apps into the hands of users, and how will Palm (and Sprint, the Pre's launch carrier) ensure reliability of the apps? Also, can Palm still attract developers? Shortly after Palm's press conference, I spoke with CNET News' Ina Fried about the announcement.

• Ballmer also spoke with Fried and said the tech economy is in the middle of a "reset."

• LG revealed even more about its impressive suite of stream-enabled audio-visual gear. Panasonic announced Internet content for its plasma TVs.

• Wednesday night, I got a look at a demo (video link) of Yahoo Connected TV, a new platform that will enable viewers of new televisions to pop little content widgets up over their programs.

• My favorite Internet toy, the Chumby, got grown-up supervision through a partnership with Samsung.

• Is Skype the recession-proof phone company? The VoIP provider is doing well right now.

• In the "we'll just pretend that Palm didn't just steal our thunder" department, INQ claims it's the world's first real social mobile company

• Scariest news of the show: Ford trucks are getting LogMeIn remote PC access. Can't wait to meet one of these barreling down the interstate.

Previously: Webware wrapup for CES Day 0.

[salimismail]

Rafe, thanks for the great summary. The Palm certainly looks very very cool....

[hermantf]

Hopefully the Pre will bring back one of the greatest inventions that Apple and many other copy-cats (for whatever ridiculous reason) have tried to make obsolete. The button!

While I love the iPhone's touch screen, the button is a good thing and needs to make a comeback. It looks like Palm is on the right track.

[wiredchicken]

SPRINT IS THE WORST CELL PHONE COMPANY PROVIDER!!
Why are they coming out with the new palm smart phone through Sprint??? This is going to be a failure, honestly, because no one uses print, and they have very unreliable service! I think they should go through ATT/Cingular instead, they have much better cell phone coverage and are also more reliable/dependable. Even Verizon is better then sprint. Additionally, this depressing, I am using ATT, and when they roll out somthing I like such as the Palm Smartphone, they purposely come out with a irrelevent cell phone company!