Roger McNamee of Elevation Partners -- who previously made headlines before they sold Palm to HP -- is back with some interesting views on how Apple's App Store might have already killed Google's open web.

McNamee asserts that search, which makes Google billions in advertising revenue on the desktop, has been reduced to 1% of mobile activity, effectively obliterating it as a business. He blames/credits that to Apple and their App Store model, where they present the internet not in open, standards based web pages but closed, proprietary native applications.

The open web was too wild for the mainstream, MacNamee says, which makes Apple's iPhone and iPad far more accessible, approachable, and comfortable. (He also thinks iPad is the most important device since the IBM PC and urges everyone to get one.)

McNamee doesn't seem to be casting Apple as the villain of the open web, or the hero of the app mainstream, but rather both, or rather still commenting on the re-closing of the web.

That's something we've been speaking about a lot on our podcasts lately. Compuserve, Prodigy, AOL, etc. all started as mainstream-friendly, walled-gardens built on top of the internet. Eventually, they had to give users real email and real web access, and the walled gardens fell.

Now, however, the App Store has repackaged it again. And Facebook has erected a new, more social, but just as walled a garden. And Google is having to walk the line with Android and Plus and other services to provide a good experience while still staying as open as their original philosophy allowed.

MacNamee thinks it's done in Mobile. Google's model lost. I'm not so sure. "It is what it is" is far too easy and final for the turbulence we're still undergoing. Apple is all in on open HTML5 as a second development platform, for example, so just like Google they're embracing/hedging what they feel is the best of both models. That might be the new normal. We might finally be recognizing one model doesn't work for everyone, and a combination of the two is more than the sum of it's parts -- or its soundbites.

Video after the break.

[Fortune via Android Central]

More specifically, Palm's biggest cheerleader at financial backer, Elevation Partner, Roger McNamee famously gaffed that:

“You know the beautiful thing: June 29, 2009, is the two-year anniversary of the first shipment of the iPhone,” McNamee said today in an interview in San Francisco. “Not one of those people will still be using an iPhone a month later.”

Well, today is July 29, 2009 -- two years later and a month later. Given that Apple sold 5.2 million iPhones last quarter, and AT&T activated 2.5 million of those babies, we're leaning towards a number somewhat higher than "not one."

Hey, maybe that's what he meant? Quite clearly, "millions" means "not one"... right?

(Note: Palm did retract McNamee's hyperbole with a speed that would make Microsoft's Steve Ballmer Open-Mic Reaction Team (SBOMRT) envious.)

Sprint and the Palm Pre just decided to bring it to Apple's iPhone via a perfectly nifty, if factually inaccurate(1), little ad-esque banner posted on Facebook. PreCentral.net already pipped us to the relevant quote post, citing McNamee's infamous CEOh-snap moment from the past:

You know the beautiful thing: June 29, 2009, is the two- year anniversary of the first shipment of the iPhone, [...] Not one of those people will still be using an iPhone a month later.

The relative thriftiness of constraining their marketing budget to a Facebook fan-base aside, does it really behoove Palm to remind iPhone 2G owners that their contracts are up, right after 1,000,000 people jumped on the iPhone 3GS last weekend alone?

How does that compare to Palm Pre numbers to date?

(utter silence)

That's what we thought...

1. The iPhone multitasks iPod, Mail, Phone, Safari iTunes, and App Store, phenomenally well -- the iPhone 3GS more snappily than the arguably laggy Palm Pre. Apple simply chooses not to allow 3rd party multitasking at this point, something that admittedly chaffs, but is still a far cry from what's insinuated in the "ad".

As Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak paid rapt attention (via Engadget), Palm's new dynamic duo, Jon Rubinstein and Roger McNamee took turns amazing, informing, and stupefying the crowd at All-Things Digital's D7 conference. Our sibling site, PreCentral.net has complete coverage, but from an iPhone perspective there were a few things worth drawing attention to...

The good: Ruby and Mac, straight and funny man respectively, were an awesome combination in the best, most comedic sense of the term. Palm should make sure their contracts say they need to co-host all future events. Presentation Gold. Ruby controlled the message and acted the responsible corporate governor while Mac was left to make outrageous claims and obfuscate the tough questions. And it worked brilliantly. Their opening video alone, which self-deprecatingly poked at Mac's history of grandiose statements all the while letting him slip in even more jabs, such as the terminal "[Palm Pre] eats iPhone's for breakfast."

The bad: when demonstrating the previously mentioned Palm Pre iTunes sync, comments were made about Apple being "monopolistic". Puh-leeze. Palm has an absolute right to make their own desktop client (they already make Palm Desktop for example). They don't have the right to hook into Apple's without license, even if Apple has the most popular media client on the planet. To make it simple for them, no matter how popular McDonald's is, they have the right to serve their own fries with their Big Macs. Burger King DOES NOT have the right to set up a stall inside McDonald's and hook up Whoppers next to the MacFries machine -- unless McDonald's says it's okay.

Tangent: Telling Palm Pre users they can hook up and sync with iTunes, even if you specify "DRM free music, photos (?!), and videos" is all fun and games until a) users can't transfer their iPhone apps and blame Apple, b) a routine (or not so) update to iTunes breaks Pre compatibility and users blame Apple.

The ugly: Great as Ruby and Mac were together, Ruby couldn't stop Mac from fully inserting his foot into his mouth towards the end. In a painfully, painfully drawn-out exchange with Kara Swisher, Mac began by saying the Pre had a mirror for woman, which Swisher immediately took exception to. Unrelenting, Mac continued to press the point about women being an ignored segment of the market, then took exception to Swisher's exception, and basically ended up writing the title for this here blog post, casting the Palm Pre as the "iPhone for Ladies" -- insulting women and potentially turning off a segment of their male audience as well. Sad, given the great start to the show.

So that was likely the last big Palm song and dance before release, and it was a mixed bag and perhaps a changing of the guard as well. A lot was made of Ruby's Apple pedigree and experience -- and we couldn't help but notice that after Ruby's comments that he basically rescued the Pre from resistive hell, Palm founder Ed Colligan was nowhere to be seen. If the Palm Pre is Ruby's iPhone, maybe we've just met the new iPalm?

Ouch! According to PreCentral.net, Palm has just given uber-investor Roger McNamee the PR equivalent of the Price-is-Right FAIL buzzer. Bum-Bum-Ba-Bum-Bowwwwwwww...

Much of it is numbers and analyst based, but a few gems glare out, especially #5, #8, and #9. Words like "premature" and "withdrawn" are used. Double ouch.

Read the whole post for a great daily dose of schadenfreude.

Of course, it wasn't all bad news for Palm yesterday: Engadget editor-in-chief Josh Topolsky hit Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to show off the Pre, and show techies are comedy gold as well.

No sooner did we report the outlandish statement from Palm backer Elevation Partners head-geek Roger McNamee that come June, every iPhone 2G owner would ditch the platform and AT&T to become Pre-verts on Sprint, than our sibling site PreCentral.net went and updated.

Seems McNamee thinks iPhone Mobile Safari ain't all that, compared to the Pre (even though the Pre uses Apple's open-source WebKit foundation -- which we know comes from KHTML/Konquerer...):

"Our product is just going to run rings around them on the web. If you want to go the web, it's going to be a million time faster, well, not a million times, several times faster and that's a huge deal for most people."

Really? And since Sprint can't do simultaneous voice and data, the minute you answer a call, your speed drops to zero. How much faster is that?

Apparently, however, McNamee's hurt turns to heart for Apple's Mac platform:

I've been an apple fan for years and I would never use any other kind of computer!

Bulletin: Some may just feel the same about the iPhone, b'okay Roger? See the whole crash-and-burn on video at Bloomberg...

Hey, it's nice to see Palm getting back into the game! No, not with their admittedly compelling -- if Apple inspired -- Palm Pre handset set to land sometime in the first half of 2008. But with their rhetoric. You know, the same rhetoric that had Palm CEO Ed Colligan, when asked about the iPhone before it's launch say, Apple wasn't just going to walk in and figure smartphones out.

This time time it's not Colligan however, but Palm uber-financier and Bono-buddy Roger McNamee, he of the coolest utility belt since Batman, who's firing the mouth-cannon Apple's way. McNamee tells Bloomberg (via Daring Fireball):

“You know the beautiful thing: June 29, 2009, is the two-year anniversary of the first shipment of the iPhone,” McNamee said today in an interview in San Francisco. “Not one of those people will still be using an iPhone a month later.”

Not one? Really? We're certain some die hard Palm faithful and curious technophiles will become Pre-verts come launch day (we even suspect an editor-in-chief we know might just be waiting in line already...) but not one?

Given Apple's statement that June is also iPhone product cycle, and that the Pre has fairly shamelessly glommed Apple's iPhone style -- and several high profile members of the iPhone development team -- we're certain Steve Jobs won't make it a point to have a shiny new iPhone 3.0 ready for just about the same time, so that original iPhone owners have an easier, maybe even moe compelling upgrade path available. Can't see that happening, can we...?