Comments on: Palm's Financial Woes Continue

During their last quarterly earnings statement, Palm's CEO Carl Yankowski said his wasn't the only handheld company experiencing a slowdown. However, Handspring immediately afterwards said they were on target to meet their quarterly projections and just yesterday the co-CEO of Research In Motion, which makes the Blackberry pager, said, "This sector slowdown is mythical. We didn't see a slowdown in demand."

Whether it has company or not, Palm Inc. is struggling with numerous problems. While it has almost $600 million in unrestricted cash, they will likely spend as much as half of that trying to deal with mounting inventories and slowing demand.

 $600 in cash?

I.M. Anonymous @ 4/12/2001 11:56:24 AM #

No wonder Palm is in trouble, they only have $600 in cash. ;-)
Really though, is this supposed to be $600 million?

 RE: $600 in cash?

Ed @ 4/12/2001 12:01:27 PM #

Yeah, Carl took the entire company out to McDonald's yesterday and the total was $579 so they are now out of business. No, you are correct, that number is suposed to have the word "million" after it and I have added it. Thanks for pointing this out.

---
Plenipotentiary
Palm Infocenter

 RE: $600 in cash?

PFloyd @ 4/12/2001 12:38:57 PM #

My accountant friend would just call that running a tight ship! He goes on and on about cash laying around and not working for the company is bad. ;-)

 Handspring Earnings Call

I.M. Anonymous @ 4/12/2001 1:44:57 PM #

>>
However, Handspring immediately afterwards said they were on target to meet their quarterly projections

<<

Handspring has set up an "earnings call" for 5 PM EDT today (April 12). Normally, you don't set up earnings calls unless you're going to announce something bad. I wouldn't rely on Handspring's earnings meeting expectations just yet...

 RE: Handspring Earnings Call

I.M. Anonymous @ 4/12/2001 2:10:24 PM #

I think your comments are a little off-target - they set up this call a long time ago, before Palm had posted their results.

 RE: Handspring Earnings Call

I.M. Anonymous @ 4/13/2001 12:07:17 AM #

Looks like Palm IS alone on this one, both Handspring and RIM had posted today and both met and exceeded the analyist projections!

 Palm's woes

I.M. Anonymous @ 4/12/2001 1:54:48 PM #

Well, the only thing good about these problems for Palm is the major price reductions on all their handhelds... just check out your local Staples or whereever you buy your stuff, prices on them are dropping like a rock (i.e. Palm Vx has dropped 110$cdn @ Staples in the last two weeks.. damn!)

And from what I'm hearing, prices could be going even lower on many of their models; prices haven't bottomed out *just* yet.

 there is no sector slowdown

I.M. Anonymous @ 4/14/2001 12:09:48 AM #

just ask compaq who cannot make enough ipaqs to meet demand

 RE: there is no sector slowdown

I.M. Anonymous @ 4/14/2001 10:40:37 AM #

I think that has more to do with Compaq's incompetence than what is happening with the economy.