McNamee interviewed on Bloomberg

[YouTube link]

Hot on the heels of the Pre's launch in the UK, our favorite Palm investor/board member sat down to talk turkey about Palm on Bloomberg   Turns out that McNamee, our hero, can juggle better than most - he can open for Metallica, he can overstate things a bit (or more than a bit), he can mix it up with the folks at All Things D, and he can poke fun at himself. Most importantly, when it comes to talking about his money, he can button down and make the case that Palm is a good ten-year investment.

McNamee reiterated his view that RIM and Apple will continue to be very successful, but goes a step further here to mention why: both companies have tightly controlled and integrated hardware and software.  He sees that integration as being one of the keys to Palms long term success in the smartphone market.  He also notes just how small that smartphone market really is, with RIM commanding only 3% of total cellphone market share, and Apple with roughly 2%.  There was, interestingly, no mention of Nokia or Android. The view here is certainly more optimistic than the results of a study we posted that put Palm's market share at a vanishingly small 1.4% by 2012.

When asked about the Pixi and concerns that the forthcoming handheld will cannibalize Pre sales, the response was that it was a non-issue because regardless of which webOS sporting handset is bought, the consumer is adopting webOS and that's a win for Palm. 

When questioned about the near term financial out look of Palm, McNamee began skirting questions.  If you recall, the Q2 financial forecast given in the company's guidance back in september is 240 Million, down from 360 million in Q1. The projected year end result is between 1.6 to 1.8 billion.  He had nothing substantive to offer on how Palm plans to get from point A (revenues of 280 million) to point B (revenues of 1.6 billion) in only two quarters.  Responses ranged from "rolling product out is a lumpy process" to "we're in this for the long term".

In it for the long term? It's clear that they are, as Elevation Partners and some of its owners loaded up on stock during the public offering back in September.