Handspring Expects to Be Profitable by June

nea..... don't really wanna add insult to injuries.

only non-clie users will say stuff like "sony's not going to support MS modules on their S-series" whenever a post about Clie is up.

The script never ends, just didn't bother to dig it out to continue.

Treo Uses Palm OS. So it's a palm Device
Sony walkman does't run palm OS my friend.... :)

Wrong answer but thanks for playing. Please take home a lovely copy of our home game, and a year's supply of Rice-a-roni, the San Francisco treat.

Really? Because other phone pdas like the Kyocera isn't doing well, right? Where I work there are 5 guys who have kyocera pda phones, and 10 people waiting for the treo to come out. Take a look at Nextel and Sprint, they charge for all their phones. They are doing well, unless someone wants to argue about that?

---------------------------------------
Stuffing feathers up your ass does not make you a chicken.

the motorola v60 is doing pretty well today. it's a $400 mono-chrome phone and doesn't even run the palm os.

the treo may not do as well as the m100 or the nokia 51xx series, but those are a completely different market. yes, wal-mart and mcdonald's do well in the states but that doesn't mean there's no market for higher-end products.

That's always a market for high-end products, just like BMW.

But are you going to tell me Handspring's going to aim at the high-end market while their deluxes sell for $129?

I never saw BMW sells civics or Honda sells a real-drive, I-6 sedan.

Am I right?

> But are you going to tell me Handspring's going to
> aim at the high-end market while their deluxes sell
> for $129?
>
> I never saw BMW sells civics or Honda sells a real-
> drive, I-6 sedan.

Of course BMW doesn't sell Civics. Hello! :)

Doesn't Ford own Jaguar? Doesn't Microsoft sell Flight Simulator as well as compilers as well as wheel mice? Doesn't IBM make ASCI White as well as $800 laptops? Doesn't Marlon Brando appear in both On the Waterfront and The Island of Dr Moreau?

You missed his point FORD owns both Jaguar and the lowly Focus.

Nissan makers of the lowly sentra, own infinity.

Toyota of Corolla fame own Lexus.

These companies wisely profit on all segments of the market.

Hey, have any of you recognized that Toyota does not sell an Toyota LS 430?

How about Lexus Corolla?

No matter what company owns another company, you still have to have a seperate brand. Is that simple?

Unless Handspring ditch the image for low-end devices, how could they sell such an expensive item for $599 without a contract for a monochrome device?

It is just similar to ask Lexus to see a GS 430 while they have a Lexus Corolla in the line-up. People who bought GS 430 will not like to see people driving Lexus Corollas around. Just like if people want to buy Treos, they will not want to see the Deluxes, Neos, Pros around. Isn't that simple?

Do any of you need further explanation?

P.S. The owner of a particular company and the parent company have no direct relationships with their repective products. If you dream that you buy a Ford Focus equals to buying a Jaguar X-Type, you need some sort of meditation.

Islander, do not forget the price for Treo is $599 without a contract. I am not a PPC fan at all. But at that price, you can buy almost any PPCs out there.

This is a phone people.
Who is going to buy it and not use the phone service?

Does 399 plus a contract mean HS will make an obscene profit? Perhaps. The question is will people buy it. Peter tries desperately to explain that this is a rip off. The very fact that you HAVE TO ARGUE your point with people shows that many would spend the money.

You wont be there in every VoicStream dealer to explain that the treo really costs 600 bucks.

I bet very few here fight now even know how much their current cellphone costs without the contract.

They will sell by the gazilliion.
Thus the "profitable by june" article.

I agree with a previous poster, separate cell phone and PDA (but with bluetooth) would be ideal for me. I'd guess most of the Treo's target market already have a cell phone and/or PDA and may hesitate at the thought of the cost of replacing one or both. However, the Treo might be something corporations invest in more than individual users...

Yes, the Treo will be big hit in Europe, if it has more sexy styling and find good, solid wireless carriers.

Indeed, they fail both of these. How can you expect a big hit? A big flop indeed.

Don't tell me you Europeans love the elegance of Handspring's devices, such as Neo, Pro, Prism. I will be amused.

Let me toss in another of my 2cents. Treo is focused on the same market that nextel and balckberry is. Look at the blackberry, its an expensive piece of equipment, but my company alone is using 10,000 of them in a SINGLE office, I bs you not. Treo will fill the niche of people needing to be connected to their offices with the ability to communicate more then voice. Treo does everything blackberry does + a cell phone with top of the line functions. Take one part phone that is usable internationaly, add a keyboard, constant email connectivity, always on function, and ability to access corporate intranets and you have a product that every IT will be pushing to their boss. I'm not going to be the first to say that Treo has nothing new in it, but it has a lot of stuff thats great, in one package. One package=less total cost of operation and management=something every company wants.

---------------------------------------
Stuffing feathers up your ass does not make you a chicken.

One target market is the people who gave it a standing ovation after Jeff Hwkins showed it off at Comdex. Another is the people who went out and bough Handspring stock, more than tripling its value in the past month.

High end PDA users will wait until March and buy the color version. It will be smaller than their current model and do alot more. Low end users will have to wait a year or so to when there's a Treo model that costs less than $200, but there will be one eventually. And someday these might even come free with a mobile phone contract.

Plus, there are tons of mobile phone users who are ready for their phones to do more. About twenty times as many mobile phone have ever been sold as PDAs. If Handspring can sell just 5 percent of current mobile phone users a Treo, they'll be the number one PDA maker.

The point is, wireless handhelds are the future and Handspring has shown that they know that. Sony and Palm still haven't.

The future is wireless capability, not wireless.

Just take a look at a basic example.

If you buy a TV for $200 and a VCR for $100 and you want to sell a product that is TC/VCR combo, you have to know that the price cannot exceed $300. Or your product will flop.

Just tell me what is the total price of a decent cell-phone and a monochrome PDA. Is that over $599?

That tells you the whole story.

> If you buy a TV for $200 and a VCR for $100 and you want to sell a product that is TC/VCR combo, you have to know that the price cannot exceed $300. Or your product will flop.

> Just tell me what is the total price of a decent cell-phone and a monochrome PDA. Is that over $599?

Your analogy is correct only as long as the combo product is no better than the two separate products working in tandem. This ignores the concept of synergy. A product can be greater than the sum of its parts. It isn't always, like your TV/VCR combo, but it can be. From all reports from people who have actually used a Treo, not just read about it, this combo is much better than just a cell phone and a PDA. There is less complexity for the user to deal with in the Treo. Don't underestimate the advantage of this to the typical man on the street who can't figure out how to set the clock on his VCR. Also, the Treo is actually smaller than all but the very smallest PDAs and about the size of a small cell phone. You aren't going to be carrying the TV/VCR around but the phone/PDA combo will go with you everywhere so size does matter.

> Just tell me what is the total price of a decent cell-phone and a monochrome PDA. Is that over $599?

In order for a cell phone and a PDA to simulate the ease of use of a Treo, they'll have to be connected with bluetooth. Wires or infra-red are just too clumsy. A phone with bluetooth and a PDA with bluetooth will set you back $700 or $800.

To he who asked why you need blackberry functionality. Current GPS/GPRS doesn't let you use corporate email. Thats what is so great about the blackberry. It is an always on, as in....it never disconnects, it never turns off device that connects directly to your corporate mail server to get your mail. There is no solution as far as I know that does this. Then you have the qwerty keyboard, like the treos. You can't expect a business user to reply using number keys. So you take all these elements, which have been successful with corporate users but not with consumers because of the price and you put it into a cellphone, which they can afford and justify to themselves and their wives/husbands :) Combine with wireless web. You have a treo, a phone that lets you use 10,000+ 3rd party programs, jack directly into a corporate network, or a pop3 network and get the mail as it arrives. Think of it for a sec, the guys who make documents to go now has software that lets mobile users work together on one document. This is the holy grail of corporate mobile use. Thats why blackberry really won't do well for a long time, software. It has horrible 3rd party support.

---------------------------------------
Stuffing feathers up your ass does not make you a chicken.