Comments on: Palm Announces Profit but Gloomy Times Ahead

Palm Inc. has just reported a third quarter profit that beat analyst's estimates, driven by a strong rise in revenues, but said next quarter they will lose money. In response, they will trim costs by cutting staff and delay the construction of the new headquarters.

They said pro forma net income for the third quarter -- which excludes certain special items -- was $9.3 million, or two cents per share. This compares to pro forma net income of $15.8 million, or three cents per share, for the same quarter last year. Analysts had forecast profits of one cent..

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Palm CEO Knows We're Here

Ed @ 3/27/2001 10:54:19 PM #

At the conference call today someone asked Carl Yankowski why they had announced the m500 series so far ahead of the date they could ship them. He listed as one of the reasons the fact that so much of the information about them had already leaked out on sites like this one. The questioner then wanted to know what were going to try to prevent future leaks but Mr. Yankowski didn't answer them directly.

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Plenipotentiary
Palm Infocenter

RE: Palm CEO Knows We're Here

Nate @ 3/28/2001 1:03:45 PM #

That doesn't seem right - didn't he pretty much announce a few months ago that Palm was going to announce the new units at CeBit? It seems more likely that they have had delays in production, or that it was part of their marketing strategy. Saying they had to announce the product because a couple of pics showed up is just scapegoating.

_________
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RE: Palm CEO Knows We're Here

Ed @ 3/28/2001 3:45:21 PM #

Well, he did list it as just one of a couple of reasons. The other two were they wanted to show it off at CeBit, and they wanted their retailers to be ready.

BTW, if you want to hear it for yourself, the recorded call is available here: http://biz.yahoo.com/cc/2/3902.html
The question is about 40 mins into it.

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Plenipotentiary
Palm Infocenter

Poor decisions at Palm

I.M. Anonymous @ 3/28/2001 11:21:47 PM #

Palm's slow introduction of new models and features are to blame for their slow sales. Where they announced the introduction of the m50x this March, it will not be available until end-April. This will cut into demand, as buyers wait for new models. If they plan to undercut Handspring's Edge. The effect's likely to be minimal. As aside from the color screen and SD, most of m50x features are available in the Edge. Finally blaming the Palm community for premature releases of info is childish on Palm's part. It's shows their lack of vision. There's a huge demand for new devices which is why there's a demand for info on new devices. Palm's late to the ballgame. Hopefuuly, they will learn from this debacle and speed up Products and OS updates.

Palm eliminating jobs

I.M. Anonymous @ 3/30/2001 1:02:56 PM #

Ed... anyone... wondering where the termination of 400 contract employees figure came from. It didn't say anything about 400 contract workerse in Palm's release.

Thanks...

RE: Palm eliminating jobs

Ed @ 3/30/2001 1:25:57 PM #

Here it is from a Reuters article:

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/htx/nm/20010327/tc/palm_earns_dc_6.html

Here it is again in The Register:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/7/17933.html

However, it occurs to me that the way the Reuters article is phrased can be read in two ways, one saying that the 400 contractors are being let go and the other that the contract workers are just part of the total number of employees. Both I and The Register may have misread this.

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Plenipotentiary
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