Comments on: Confirmed: Layoffs at Palm Inc Today
Palm currently employs around 1,247 people. While we don't have an official confirmation at this time, a few ex-emplyees have come forward with claims that the layoffs are worldwide and could number in the hundreds. The company had their last round of layoffs back in June, with reports indicating around 100 people were let go.
Article Comments
(75 comments)
The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. PalmInfocenter is not responsible for them in any way.
Please Login or register here to add your comments.
RE: Not quite factual
RE: Not quite factual
Someone at the CC coming up in a week (18th) will probably ask the "Headcount?" question - let's see if PALM answers it.
And let's see if the question is asked RIGHT this time, too, e.g.:
== "We know that a number of people have and will be laid off
== from PALM. What is the current headcount and how much do you
== expect that headcount to decline further through the end of
== the year?"
and, when Colligan obfuscates the answer to the second part by saying something like:
== "Well, we can't predict the future"
follows up with the question:
== "Then all layoffs you expected have already taken place?"
and when Colligan says:
== "No, not yet"
follows up with:
== "Okay, then how many layoffs that were expected have yet to take place!?"
Giggle.
Sounds good to me, time to trim the fat!
Tungsten T --> Palm TX --> Foleo-mini??(like an LD-II with a small attached keyboard??)
RE: Sounds good to me, time to trim the fat!
Seriously though, one hopes the stock-market driven cutbacks does not make Palm even less competitive, and lead to even further "certification delays". Its pretty ominous that, in December, besides the 800w and GSM Centro, we know little else of Palm's 2008 line-up. Will there even be a 750w replacement? Which other phone company leaves a phone on the market for 2 whole years these days. Yet thats exactly what Palm did with the 700 w/wx, antenna and all.
Palm must be in shambles internally and morale pretty low.
RE: Sounds good to me, time to trim the fat!
Goddammit. They came back?!!?
RE: Sounds good to me, time to trim the fat!
we're talking about lives and jobs. it's Christmas time, people have families to feed. have some compassion.
RE: Sounds good to me, time to trim the fat!
Obviously someone has hacked Scrooge Gekko's account.
RE: Sounds good to me, time to trim the fat!
``Are there no prisons?'' asked Scrooge.
``Plenty of prisons,'' said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
``And the Union workhouses?'' demanded Scrooge. ``Are they still in operation?''
``They are. Still,'' returned the gentleman, `` I wish I could say they were not.''
``The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?'' said Scrooge.
``Both very busy, sir.''
``Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,'' said Scrooge. ``I'm very glad to hear it.''
And:
``I wish to be left alone,'' said Scrooge. ``Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned: they cost enough: and those who are badly off must go there.''
``Many can't go there; and many would rather die.''
``If they would rather die,'' said Scrooge, ``they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides -- excuse me -- I don't know that.''
``But you might know it,'' observed the gentleman.
``It's not my business,'' Scrooge returned. ``It's enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people's. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!''
RE: Sounds good to me, time to trim the fat!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7142073.stm
I wonder who ghostwrote it? (If everyone says *he* wrote it, then it's an ever bigger embarrassment than it is...)
The Commodore collapse comparison becomes even more true.
Notice that the main cancerous tumor in the company, Ed PDA-Killer Colligan, is still firmly in placed.
RE: The Commodore collapse comparison becomes even more true.
Hey, Elevation Partners!
If you guys think the Centro should redeem Colligan, I hope to hell you not only lose every cent you dumped into Palm, but have your asses personally bankrupted by shareholder class action lawsuits and government investigations til you rot!
The FIRST announcement of layoffs should BEGIN with ED COLLIGAN.
RE: Hey, Elevation Partners!
Ed is marketing. Which means he's just a moron who lucked into a position.
RE: Hey, Elevation Partners!
That's doing a disservice to Nagel!!! :)
You know the CEO sucks when the form factor decisions for Palm devices were being made by someone in the ACCOUNTING department!!!!
Officially Confirmed by Palm
-----
"Palm lays off employees, more restructuring
A Palm representative confirmed rumors that the troubled maker of the Treo smartphone is laying off people again. Here's the statement from the Sunnyvale company.
" Palm is working to sharpen its focus and better align resources behind core initiatives that will make the greatest impact to our business. To this end, and to ensure that our expenses are in line with projected revenues, we have made some reassignments and reductions in staff. This will better enable us to compete most effectively and ensure our long-term success.
"
There is no sense of how many people are being moved around and laid off. Palminfocenter.com reported this evening that Palm employees told them the layoffs are worldwide and could number in the hundreds. That would be significant for a company with about 1,250 employees. The last layoffs took place this summer.
It's clear that even with the injection of investment from Elevation Partners and the launch of the Palm Centro this fall, Palm is still in trying to right its ship. The company earlier this week said revenue would come in $30 million below earlier forecasts due to delays of a new product.
-----
RE: Officially Confirmed by Palm
== resources behind core initiatives that will make the greatest
== impact to our business..."
Is PalmOS a core initiative that will make the greatest impact to their business?
RE: Officially Confirmed by Palm
"To this end, and to ensure that our expenses are in line with projected revenues, we have made some reassignments and reductions in staff."
This is the bad part. Its basically saying "It seems we will be making less money from here on out, and we therefore had to reduce out expenses". This does NOT imply the loss this quarter was a one-off due to a missed product launch, but rather an ongoing issue which will affect them for possibly years to come.
RE: Officially Confirmed by Palm
> to their business?
To take that thought further...
Is Linux internals a core initiative that will make the greatest impact to their business?
Or have they adopted Android?
RE: Officially Confirmed by Palm
We can't EARN a profit so we must hang onto the money we have by getting rid of these goddam people in the halls and cubicles who are subtracting from the FAT UNEARNED BONUSES we intend to pay ourselves.
ED COLLIGAN: RESIGN! Have some balls!
RE: Officially Confirmed by Palm
If they did, someone call the authorities. That would be a clear case of child abuse!
RE: Officially Confirmed by Palm
I also wouldn't be surprised to see a 2nd generation Treo 500 (550w?) release later on in the year with the addition of a US-friednly quad band radio and a mute/ring switch. It could be marketed as Palm's Q-competitor (basically, a CDMA WM equivalent of the Centro).
Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P
RE: Paging Ben Combee
However, ever since wearing them regularly for use with computers, etc, I've found myself very consistently making dyslexic-type typos - fats/fast, indeed.
RE: Paging Ben Combee
RE: Paging Ben Combee
>>>However, ever since wearing them regularly for use with computers, etc, I've found myself very consistently making dyslexic-type typos - fats/fast, indeed.
I need reading glasses for books and paper. Not for the screen. Letters drop or get garbled in transmission from brain to fingers. They'll name this syndrome after me. After all, am I not its greatest practitioner?
>>>Sorry, still at Palm, still working hard on the next gen stuff. And I do blog, just not about secret stuff :)
Well, Ben, glad to see you've still got a job. Hey, with so many empty cubicles over there now, is the carpeting thick enough to stifle echoes?
RE: Paging Ben Combee
My bifocal glasses are set to have the top part focus at stiff-arm's length and the bottom part at bent-arm's length. I don't wear them (nor need any) for anything further away than a few feet.
RE: Paging Ben Combee
RE: Paging Ben Combee
No, Spousie's insurance did, I think.
I think I paid for the special coating, though, which turned out to be a mistake since it makes them hard to clean.
RE: Paging Ben Combee
Nah, ya don't get that from glasses anymore.
Now you get that from hanging Christmas lights.
-- http://cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/12/10/christmas.lights/index.html?iref=newssearch
RE: Paging Ben Combee
Oh, so YOU are the reason insurance is so expensive! That's it, just think of yourself.
You could've spent a buck!
So to review here at PIC:
We have one guy with fat bratwurst fingers
We have another guy whose eyes have gold irises...
(ROTFLMAO!)
RE: Paging Ben Combee
Ed must LOVE you for having that ASUS Foolio killer!! Did they ax Marc Blank? I bet that Eddy was seeing his true colors with e-mail slogging along and not meeting deadlines!
RE: Paging Ben Combee
And, if not, why not?
RESIGN, Colligan!!
>>>"I knew I couldn't turn the company around by myself," says Mr. Colligan, 46, who has been Palm's CEO since 2004. "I needed a partner on the tech front who could change the dynamics of our development team."
No, Ed. You need to GO AWAY. Time for the grown-ups to take over.
And:
>>>"There was a perception our products had gotten a little stale," says Mr. Colligan. "We'll break out of that."
A LITTLE STALE?!!? A PERCEPTION?!!?
How frikkin retarded ARE you, man?!
Here, Ed, just copy and paste this template so you can get the hell out of everyone's way:
=====================
Dear Chairman and Board of Directors of Palm, Inc.:
It is with some regret that I hereby tender my resignation effective immediately.
Please don't hit me.
Signed,
Ed Colligan
====================
Do it!
This is how sad Palm has gotten...
>>>In mid-July, as Palm Inc. was putting the finishing touches on its new $99 Centro smart phone, the gadget's development team received a stark message: It wasn't good enough.
>>>The warning was delivered by Jon Rubinstein, a former top Apple Inc. executive who this year joined Palm as executive chairman with a directive from Palm Chief Executive Ed Colligan to shake up the struggling smart-phone maker. Mr. Rubinstein wasn't happy with the Centro's final touches, so he ordered several Palm executives to get on a plane to Asia to work more closely with the company's contract manufacturers. He asked product managers to look at details that hadn't been discussed before, such as whether the Centro's keyboard could be easily viewed in bright sunlight.
I mean, WTF?! It took a STRANGER to tell them that?! Where is their inside expertise?!
Hey, Rubenstein, do you like PDAs at all?! Someone give him a LifeDrive (oh I am so cruel!).
Ed Colligan speaks
http://youtube.com/watch?v=nN5pIiGW5Tc
Note that key sentence: "There will *always* be dedicated organizers."
Not at **$100 above** their value, Ed!
RE: Over 200 engineers go POOF!
Banal yet hypnotic...
RE: Over 200 engineers go POOF!
RE: Over 200 engineers go POOF!
RE: Over 200 engineers go POOF!
No, we have to monitor the threats to this country. Obviously the NSACIAFBI can't do a damned thing right.
NSACIAFBI: RESIGN!
WAY-OT: RE: Over 200 engineers go POOF!
> the NSACIAFBI can't do a damned thing right...
In Chantilly is a set of Big Blue Spy Buildings:
http://maps.google.com/?ll=38.88193,-77.45092&spn=0.007517,0.01075&t=h&z=17&om=1
When those buildings were being built a number of years back, there was a BIG professional internally lit sign marking them as "Rockwell International". After someone in Congress screamed bloody murder about the CIA (I think) spending $300 million to build them secretly did they take that sign down and replace it with another saying "National Reconnaissance Office".
http://ludb.clui.org/ex/i/VA3142/
The spy business is fun.
RE: From a purported ex-minion
I myself experienced a company where all the kiss-ass 'go out and party with those in power' people continually get promoted to often jobs that have to be created out of thin air.
The company ends up with a bunch of management and middle-management people fighting and backstabbing one another over petty issues, pride and power trips. Meanwhile, all the "worker bees", the real value to any company are let go. Then the company fails, the managerial people and snobs start pointing fingers and then company goes bankrupt.
Solution is to hire people who do work that directly impacts sales, product value and customer satisfaction, then build them, keep them, value them long term through thick and thin.
No company should ever forget where there pay check comes from. ME! and all the other Palm consumers like myself.
Palm... PLEASE FOCUS...
New PDAs, new form factors, OLED, an improved Palm OS, and yes of course new phones and PDA-phones. Get to work!
RE: From a purported ex-minion
COLLIGAN: RESIGN!!!
RE: From a purported ex-minion
Seriously, what's a new CEO gonna do that would be exciting and SAVING for PALM?
As far as I can see, the BEST a new CEO could do would be to gut the company down to the bare minimum, reorient it TOTALLY to some ephemeral new platform set of communicating devices, and act like a just-IPOed money loser until that could be brought to market.
And the problem with THAT train of thought is PALM now has $400 million in debt with antsy creditors so doing THAT is probably not possible.
So I don't see any benefit in canning Colligan other than transient satisfaction for a few.
RE: From a purported ex-minion
Just look at the Foleo as an example of what founder hubris can lead to. They think they are geniuses when they just lucked out last time.
RE: From a purported ex-minion
He pays for his crimes. Justice is served.
And yeah, that above comment made me think. Maybe even Hawkins and Dubinsky should be dumped. Clean house.
Colligan: RESIGN!
Where's your Treo god now, sniveling fanboi?
http://tinyurl.com/39lrju
>>>Colligan Laughs Off iPhone Competition
>>>“We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone. PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.’”
Whether it's PalmOS or WinMob, Colligan can't win.
Colligan: RESIGN!
RE: Where's your Treo god now, sniveling fanboi?
RE: Where's your Treo god now, sniveling fanboi?
RE: Where's your Treo god now, sniveling fanboi?
RE: Where's your Treo god now, sniveling fanboi?
You're always making innuendos when the iPhone outperforms, and then making excuses when Palm underperforms.
You're a ****ing fanboy. Get over yourself.
-Bosco
NX80v + Wifi + BT + S710a
RE: Where's your Treo god now, sniveling fanboi?
Just give up. You've shown that no matter how pathetic Palm gets, there is always someone (freakout) MORE pathetic and willing to suck up to them.
-Bosco
NX80v + Wifi + BT + S710a
RE: Where's your Treo god now, sniveling fanboi?
Palm running out of money isn't going to change the fact the iPhone is an overpriced toy.
RE: Where's your Treo god now, sniveling fanboi?
*Inferior virtual keyboard
*Inferior thumb-swipe unlocking (I'd rather just press one button I could feel in my sleep, thanks.)
*No 3G
*No "Select All" in email. (Delete all? )
*No cut-and-paste
*No official third-party app support
*No MMS
*No video recording
*No removable battery
*No hangup button
*No unlocked version
*Attracts fingerprints like I attract women (as in it's covered in them)
*Has a bug where you can't play music and surf the web at the same time without random crashes.
Sorry, you were saying? I'm at work now so I've probably missed a couple...
RE: Where's your Treo god now, sniveling fanboi?
RE: Where's your Treo god now, sniveling fanboi?
-- you are still leaning on that corpse of an excuse? Especially with Palm blaming *official* 3rd-party apps for all their OS's shortcomings and bugs?
*No MMS
http://mikecane.wordpress.com/2007/07/13/reference-how-to-send-mms-on-an-iphone/
*No video recording
-- I recently posted about that here on PIC. Givitup.
*No removable battery
-- yawn.
*No hangup button
-- say what?! How many bellybuttons do you have? You seem to love buttons. Did you buy a Kindle? Does that have enough buttons for you?
*No unlocked version
-- say what?
*Attracts fingerprints like I attract women (as in it's covered in them)
-- in your frikkin dreams do you attract women. And even those dreams turn out not to be wet.
Oh the flaiings of a fanboi is a hilarious thing to see...
RE: Where's your Treo god now, sniveling fanboi?
Absolutely. But I bet they won't be.
Mike:
*No hangup button
-- say what?! How many bellybuttons do you have? You seem to love buttons. Did you buy a Kindle? Does that have enough buttons for you?
I just figure anyone who makes a phone without a hangup button is an idiot. I'm a simple man, I admit.
Kindle's cool but also looks like something from 1980's. An era of great music, but not great gadget design...
RE: Where's your Treo god now, sniveling fanboi?
Freak, just for fun, how about a bet? Lets delete from your list the three which are either non-issues or purely personal taste, and add a couple more issues that are indisputably flaws in the device, and see what happens.
These three are not real to me:
*Attracts fingerprints like I attract women (as in it's covered in them)
*Inferior thumb-swipe unlocking (I'd rather just press one button I could feel in my sleep, thanks.)
*No hangup button
That's just personal taste or a non-issue in the case of the fingerprints. On the other hand, I'll add two more real issues...
1. no todos
2. no week-view in the calendar
Both of these, plus the lack of third party applications, to me, make the thing pretty much a wash. How about we bet five of the following flaws will be fixed by Feb 28?
3. Inferior virtual keyboard [This needs to be better defined. Why is the virtual keyboard inferior? What would fix it?]
4. No 3G
5. No "Select All" in email. (Delete all? )
6. No cut-and-paste
7. No official third-party app support
8. No MMS
9. No video recording
*No removable battery
*No unlocked version
*Has a bug where you can't play music and surf the web at the same time without random crashes.
RE: Where's your Treo god now, sniveling fanboi?
* inferior virtual keyboard - your preference. I counter with superior physical display and better resolution
* inferior thumb swipe unlocking - your preference. How many power buttons on my palms broke? How many hacks did I install to keep my Palms from turning on in my pocket?
* no 3g - assumes all Palm phone and PDA users have 3g - they don't. Sure, I'd love 3g, but I've learned to deal with the bandwidth I have quite well. I love my flat-rate data plan, too.
* no 'select all' in email - I have a number of gripes about iPhone email - I wish I could turn the transition graphics off and delete messages a light speed instead of watching them go in the trash... but... really... if you're trying to state that the iPhone is not a good smartphone for email, Palm/Versamail users are living in a glass house and should not throw stones.
* no cut and paste - you're right, this sucks
* no official 3rd party support - true, but you keep conveniently ignoring the hacker community, an upcoming SDK release, and the vast amount of worthless abandon/crap-ware for Palm, or ever worse... the vast amount of 3rd party apps that actually *CAUSE* problems on Palm devices. My iPhone is way more stable than any recent Palm devices I've owned.
* no mms - I call utter bullshit here yet again. I've never sent an mms! My sister and mom wouldn't know how to send an mms to save their life. Why would anyone really care about mms when they have real email? Why don't you complain about the lack of T9 support in the iphone? Why not complain about lack of a crummy WAP browser? Why not complain about lack of J2ME? Why don't you complain about the lack of a hole where you can reset the iphone with a pin? Why don't you complain about the lack of a cheap vinyl case, or a 2.5mm audio plug, or an athena connector?
* No video recording - nice to have, I admit, but certainly not a deal breaker, and many many palms were shipped that had no camera or had no default video recording app
* No removable battery - I've never replaced a battery in any of my palm devices because I always ended up buying a newer, better, faster model before my battery completely died. The only benefit I've ever received from a removable phone battery has been to rapidly reset a hung device.
* No hangup button - your preference - you mean to say no hard button for hangup. There's a button on the screen.
* No unlocked version - for most people, this doesn't impact their use of the device, and if they care, there are ways to get an unlocked one -- as is the case with nearly every phone.
* Attracts fingerprints - everything does. I actually find the flatness of the device makes it easy to clean on a pants leg, as opposed to a recessed screen, and don't get me started on screen protectors or scratched input areas from over-zealous stylus wielding.
* has a bug... - Oh no he didn't... you didn't just claim that PalmOS was better because you found a bug in the iPhone, did you? How many ugly bugs are there in Garnet that remain unfixed after YEARS?! How many Palm application developers go out of their way to work around unfixed OS bugs?
USR Palm Pilot 1000 --> Palm Pilot Professional --> TRG SuperPilot --> Palm IIIc --> Palm V --> Palm M505 --> Palm M515 --> Tungsten T|2 --> Treo 600 --> LifeDrive --> iPhone
RE: Where's your Treo god now, sniveling fanboi?
Sure. I don't dispute that.
But Bosco accused me of having "no evidence" for my personal belief that iPhone is inferior. I produced 13 pieces of 'evidence'. Not all of them will stick in the minds of everybody, but some will.
Long and short, I'm just saying what I always have: it's not perfect. Plenty of evidence for that. Certainly doesn't make you a Palm fanboy just to say Apple didn't get it right.
Latest Comments
- I got one -Tuckermaclain
- RE: Don't we have this already? -Tuckermaclain
- RE: Palm brand will return in 2018, with devices built by TCL -richf
- RE: Palm brand will return in 2018, with devices built by TCL -dmitrygr
- Palm phone on HDblog -palmato
- Palm PVG100 -hgoldner
- RE: Like Deja Vu -PacManFoo
- Like Deja Vu -T_W
Not quite factual
> back in June, with reports indicating around 100
> people were let go...
No, this is the last time we were TOLD about layoffs.