Roger McNamee's wild predictions shot down -- by Palm itself

Remember wild-man McNamee's predictions last week of death to the iPhone and all sorts of other Pre-related wonderment? We read and we chuckled and we moved on, but someone took his statements a little more seriously -- Palm. Yes, the company Roger was talking up, the company in which his firm Elevation Partners owns a particularly large stake, submitted a document to the SEC that summarily disputes all of his hyperactive talking points. It's full of facts and figures and is completely dry, but, like an episode of Yes Minister, is also full of comedic brilliance. Here's the company's reaction to our favorite bit, about the death of the iPhone:

The statement in the second paragraph of the article that "not one" person who bought an Apple, Inc. iPhone on the first shipment date "will still be using an iPhone a month" after the two-year anniversary of that day is an exaggerated prediction of consumer behavior pattern and is withdrawn.

It's good to know that, even in these tough times, there's still some comedy left in the corporate world. More boardroom humor after the break.

[Via Palm Infocenter]

With respect to the statements in the tenth paragraph of the transcript that the Palm Pre is "going to be a million times – well, not a million times – several times faster" than Apple, Inc.'s iPhone products and is "going to run rings around them on the web," the Palm Pre is still under development and it is premature to state the speed at which the device accesses the web or the relative speed of the Palm Pre compared to the smartphone products of competitors.

Where were these guys when Creative made the Zii sound like the second coming?

[SoCoolCurt Posted Mar 10th 2009 9:29AM]

good for Palm. i'm a Pre admirer and i'm almost certainly getting one this summer, but come on, the thing is not going to make everyone dump their iPhones in the trash. that's just irresponsible to say. a lot of people don't even go and get new phones when their contract is up. most people i talk to that get new phones go in to the store to get their phone fixed and just discover they are eligible for an upgrade.

the Pre is not going to kill the iPhone, the iPhone has too much of a following. sure there will be some people drop their iPhone for a Pre, that's inevitable with the Pre seeming a little more business centric compared to the media centric iPhone. but what the Pre will do is give people something else to seriously consider when they are going to get a new high end phone.

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 10th 2009 12:36PM]

This is a lot more about making sure they don't get slapped with "material mistatements" lawsuits than anything else. Ah, corporate law... ::chuckles softly::

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 10th 2009 4:00PM]

Looks like Dweezle gave himself a haircut (without a mirror). That's my kind of frugal investor!

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 10th 2009 7:38PM]

Those lofty statements needed some clarification and to be backed away from