Comments on: Barron's Says Palm is Down but Not Out

== "...shipments of Palm's Windows Mobile smartphones-meaning those using
== the Windows Mobile operating system rather than Palm's own-have grown
== faster than total Windows Mobile shipments in the past two quarters..."

That's right - exactly nothing. (and if you REALLY need to have explained how that could be a sign of REALLY bad things for PALM instead of what the "article" tries to portray you need to go back to elementary multi-variate algebra class)

And do you like this repeated falsehood:

== "...private-equity shop that in October injected $325 million into
== the company..."

They changed the wording from "cash infusion" at least, but the words of course mean the same.

And are false.

Fact - PALM went from ZERO debt and =$600+ million= in cash BEFORE the transaction to =$400 million= in debt and maybe $200 million in cash AFTER the transaction.

Does that qualify as having been injected with cash? Or as a "cash infusion"?

Be careful about the Me-Too Media - they OFTEN get it WAY wrong and they OFTEN reprint what other Me-Too Media outlets have gotten WAY wrong (ya getting the idea why it's got the name "Me-Too Media"?...

It means PALM's self-referential sales growth with Windows devices is greater than the Windows device growth in the Market as a whole. Nothing more than that.

For example, if PALM sold =1= Windows device last quarter and =2= this quarter, they have 100% growth in sales of Windows devices. We can assume the quarter-to-quarter growth of Windows devices for the Market as a whole is less than 100%, right?

=====================

This book:

-- http://tinyurl.com/27dtqw

is essential reading for ANYONE who is going to pay ANY attention to ANY statistics about ANYTHING.

Quite contrary to their dumbphones, Verizon DOES NOT cripple their smartphones. I'd even go out on a limb and say that it would be more trouble/cost than it was worth for Palm to try and get Palm to hack up Garnet more for their own customizations.

Verizon's POS Treos, in particular, if we use the 700p as the example here, have less junk/clutter in ROM than their Sprint brethren. Heck, the VZW 700p isn't saddled with lame junk (NFL, SprinTV ROM etc) and even VersaMail must be loaded from the bundled CD. If the Sprint bloatware-laden Centro and 755p are any indication, if Verizon ever gets the 755p to market, we should expect a similarly bare-bones configuration and that's actually the way I like it.

Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P

It could well be Verizon is saving people grief!

(Look at how low Palm has sunk -- it's gotten *me* to defend a frikkin *cellphone carrier*!)

To be perfectly frank here:

Yes, Sprint (TO A CERTAIN EXTENT) is much more forgiving then Verizon when it comes to launching handsets (at least Palm's offerings) with known "issues".

Case in point:

-The Handspring Treo 600 launched on Sprint, what, 8-9 months before the refreshed Palm version hit Verizon. Yes, everyone complained bitterly. But the VZW version did ship with a newer ROM and with all of the initial kinks worked out that the cash-stricken Handspring couldn't quite resolve.

-The Treo 650 launched with Sprint in October '04. Verizon didn't get it until May of '05, long after the hideous intitial NVFS bugs had been squashed.

-Palm & Sprint launched the 700p simultaneously in June '06 and we KNOW how that turned out.

So you really cannot blame Verizon for being hesitatant on the 755p after being burned so badly on the 700p debacle. Remember, YOU AND I are no longer Palm's true customers. It's the carrier that are their new bread & butter. And years of biotching and free constructive criticism/free market research on sites like PIC, TC & BH don't make one whit of difference. But, having Palm's quarterly earnings devastated because of Verizon saying that it doesn't pass muster (don't be surprised if the VZW 755p ends up being cancelled entirely) is certain to make Palm wake up and smell the coffee. Just look at the Centro--under the hood, it's superior in every way to the pricier 755p and 700p. Had Palm just gotten their act together enough to put the Centro's innards in the 755p FF they'd actually have had a semi-compelling smartphone, even if it does run Garnet.

As I've long said, Access' Garnet OS unto itself is only part of the problem. It's Palm's poor hardware choices, pitiful quality control & testing, and their implementation/hacking of Garnet that leads to the big problems.

Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P