Comments on: Palm Reports Q1 FY 2010 Results

*Cash-flow positive "before exit of fiscal year."

Jon said "I don't know much about MOTOBLUR, but I think to build really great products, you have to control the entire experience -- you have to own the OS and the services around it."

Doesn't really explain Pre's itunes hack?

I wasn't speaking of webos, but rather of itunes as a service.

Ruby's talking about owning the entire experience - pre's clunky itunes syncing solution seems to betray his sentiment.

jca666us wrote:
Doesn't really explain Pre's itunes hack?

Oh puh-lease, just give it a rest already! If Palm finds a way to hack into their system, who cares? Nobody's stealing anything. People are still paying Apple for their precious media.

Palm's hacking their way in, and you're hacking your way out (jailbreaker). What difference does it make?

(There, I feel so much better now.)

Hey Palm! Where's my PDA with Wifi and phone capabilities?

I'm still waiting for someone to define "WebOS", BTW - get an AWFUL LOT of handwaving when trying to nail it down.

BTW, part II, Motorola owns the OS and services underlying Motoblur.

I've never jailbroken my iphone - no need to.

ROFLCOPTER

Your honour, may I present Exhibit A:
http://www.palminfocenter.com/comments/9872/#154123

I've jailbroken my iphone and it's not all that difficult to do.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm. Troll-bot's memory banks appear to be short-circuiting.

jca666us wrote:
I've never jailbroken my iphone - no need to.

Hmm, must just be me, but mom and pop raised me to believe when someone intends to deceive, it's lying. Pretty simple really.

Hey Palm! Where's my PDA with Wifi and phone capabilities?

jca666us wrote:
>Palm's hacking their way in,

Exactly - a poorly thought out hack is not the best way to control the entire user experience - hence my comment regarding Ruby's statement.

The service would be synergy - however Palm doesn't control or own every aspect of the user experience - utilizing their itunes hack makes the experience clunky.

jca666us:

My point was (and is) that Palm's never going to have control over third-party apps, much less those not even running on the phone. (Remember: iTunes runs on your computer, not on your phone.) Your interpretation of his comments is flawed because it's a meaning he never could have even possibly intended.

This isn't even really about the "hack". Palm would have no more control over how iTunes worked if there was no hack involved. iTunes is a piece of software produced by an entirely different company. It's got nothing to do with the Pre user experience. It's the iTunes user experience that it affects. Any music in your iTunes library can be moved to and from your Pre without ever touching iTunes at all. It might be more familiar for people who use iTunes to do it with the software, but it can be done without it.

In relation to Rubenstein's comments (which was the point of this thread) this means that as designed the Pre was designed for a seamless experience. (I'm not saying they've gotten there, of course. There are rough spots in things like the calendar.) Once you bring a third party into it, you can't guarantee that seamlessness, but that's not what Rubenstein was talking about. You'd have the very same issue if Microsoft changed Windows Media Player or Outlook. Palm can't be held accountable for things they don't control, and that's why Rubenstein was obviously not talking about third-party apps in his statement.

Why persist in name-caling when simply asking a question would suffice? That's because you would rather change the subject than answer my original statement.

No. I would rather not communicate with you at all, especially on topics like this one where you've proven time and time again that you simply cannot understand the basic facts.

In the case of such flat-out lies as the whopper you just tried to sell us, though, I'll make an exception.

(Tim goes back to ignore mode)

jca666us wrote:
bhart,

that's my point - relying on an unwilling third party is not the way to guarantee a seamless user experience.

jca666us:

Relying on any third party, willing or not, doesn't make for a seamless user experience. But Rubenstein wasn't talking about third-party apps when he made the statement. That should be clear, because you can't control that. Even if Palm had the best relationship with Apple in the history of American businesses, you can't control something you don't own, so when Rubenstein was talking about controling the user experience, it should've been obvious that he was talking about the experience that is within the phone's domain. Does the total iPhone experience involve how the iPhone integrates with Windows Media Player or the Amazon music store? I doubt Steve Jobs would think so.

Ruby's stated that you need to control every aspect in order to guarantee a seamless user experience.

That's what makes Palm's position wrt syncing with iTunes laughable!

You're interpreting his statement in a way he couldn't possibly have meant it, though. You can't guarantee that someone is going to ahve a seemless user experience with someone else's software. Remember: Palm didn't develop the softare that syncs with the iTunes library. That's all on Apple.

Putting it more simply: If the Pre couldn't handle the file formats that the iTunes library sent to the Pre, that would be Palm's fault, and it would be appropriate to criticize them on the basis of Rubenstein's statement. But the fact that iTunes doesn't sync with the Pre (because of something Apple did very deliberately) has nothing to do with the overall Pre user experience, because when the user has that experience (of not being able to sync, in this case), the problem they're having is with iTunes, not with the Pre. The Pre doesn't do anything more or less than any other USB device (including the iPod/iPhone) does. It's iTunes that's causing that problem.

At any rate, it's not like Apple was ever going to achieve their objective (of locking other players out) for any significant length of time. If Palm decides not to do it, the Pre homebrew community will take over and release an app or service update that does exactly what the Pre's doing in firmware right now. Brain surgery, it's not. That's kind of what makes the situation comical.

Is the iTunes whack-a-hole game silly? Sure. But it's Apple that keeps it going. They don't have to use the same method to stop people from syncing with other players/phones with iTunes. In fact, they don't have to stop them at all. Arguably, it would be better if they didn't do something so lame to begin with.

See, here's the newsflash for Steve Jobs & Co.: Not everyone and his brother wants an iPhone or iPod. Sure, it might seem that way, but sometimes people want things that Apple has either refused or been very hesitant to provide. (A good example is an FM tuner. Other media players have had them for years, but Apple just now added one to the new Nano.) Apple could actually make money off of iTunes if they were a little more accepting of other platforms. You don't hear the other music providers (Amazon, Rhapsody, et. al) crying in their beers about how they can't make money off of their music stores, do you? It stands to reason that if syncing music with iTunes is such an important feature for people, these people must take their music a bit seriously. And if that's the case, then Apple could be profiting from the passion for music that these people bring to the table, instead of locking them out because they don't have an MP3 player or phone approved by Almighty Jobs.

jca666us wrote:
You must be from a country where that saying is not used.

"I couldn't care less" and "I could care less", each of which (at least here in America) is used to mean the same thing (which is basically *I* *really* *don't* *care*), even though their syntax might suggest that they should be opposites.

Similar to how "millions of people can't be wrong", eh?

(And since you apparently weren't paying attention to the many times I've said it, I'll say it once again just for you: I am an American. And I know jolly well how many Americans make a mess of the English language without a second thought as to what words actually do mean.)

Hey Palm! Where's my PDA with Wifi and phone capabilities?

I figure that once they've sold a million or so pre's they'll have a press release to that effect.

Non-GAAP numbers are the meaningful ones for smartphones. GAAP numbers are spread out over an awkward 8 quarters, but the rules are changing shortly.

In short, the Pre's launch was okay. It doesn't sound like it was as strong as they had hoped, but it wasn't a dud either. It's enough to keep the lights on and the engineers in front of the computers.

Let's see:

They lost $146 million this quarter and they have $211 million in the bank.

While Palm sold 823,000 smartphones, the number of Pre sold was curiously absent.

They have enough cash to last them one quarter (burn through for last quarter was 45 million) - that's why Palm is diluting stock - they need the cash.

Luckily Elevation Partners is buying another 35 million dollars of Palm stock to keep them afloat until Pixi is out the door.

They've estimated Q2 to have lower revenues than Q1 - that's why they timed the Pre price drop and Pixi announcement at the start of Q2 in an attempt to bolster sales.

If Pixi belly flops, say goodbye to Palm.

That is, when Sprint buys some Pres from Palm (sell-in) then turns around and sells them to BestBuy, Palm counts THOSE sales as "sell-through" even though those Pres could indeed be sitting in a warehouse and never see the hands of an end consumer!

Sheesh.

So, whenever you read the word "sell-through" from Palm ever again, ignore it; it is meaningless.