Palm to Become palmOne After Spin Off

Posted By: Ryan Monday, August 18, 2003 12:19:45 AM

palmOnePalm today announced the new name it will adopt following the spin-off this fall of PalmSource and acquisition of Handspring. Palm Solutions groups will become "palmOne" and will reflect the company’s handheld computer hardware and software solutions business and encompass the subbrands Zire and Tungsten, as well as Treo.

palmOne, New Name, New Colors
The name palmOne was chosen following interviews with a broad spectrum of Palm customers, partners, employees, naming consultants and industry influencers. Products will begin to bear the new brand name in the spring of 2004. Palm has also unveiled a new website, www.palmOne.com, that is live today and features product information and support services previously available at palm.com.

The new name is characterized in two colors – deep red for the word “palm” and vibrant orange for “One,” reflecting the subbrand colors for the company’s Tungsten line of solutions for mobile professionals and business and its Zire line of solutions for consumers and multimedia enthusiasts, respectively. The lower-case treatment of the company name gives the word “palm” visual emphasis.

“The red/orange combination is a bold departure from the blue that Palm has used for many years and builds on our new subbrands, Energy, enthusiasm, power and innovation come across much stronger in our new combination,” said Ken Wirt, Palm Solutions senior vice president and head of sales and marketing.

Handspring Acquisition
The Boards of Palm Inc and Handspring announced in June that they each have unanimously approved a definitive agreement for Palm to acquire Handspring to form a new, stronger market leader in mobile computing and communications. Immediately following the completion of the PalmSource spin-off, Handspring will be merged with Palm, and the merged company will be called palmOne. The transaction, encompassing the spin-off of PalmSource and the merger of Handspring with the remaining Palm Solutions Group of Palm, is expected to close in the fall.

The merged company will be led by Bradley, who will continue as president and chief executive officer, and will be structured around two business units: handheld computing solutions, led by Ken Wirt, currently senior vice president, sales and marketing, for Palm Solutions; and smartphone solutions, to be led by Ed Colligan, current president and chief operating officer for Handspring. Jeff Hawkins, Handspring chairman and chief product officer, will become chief technology officer for the merged company.

“Our new name also signals a new beginning at Palm,” said Bradley. “Building on our momentum in the handheld computing space worldwide and complementing it with the expected integration of the award-winning Treo line of smartphones from Handspring will give palmOne the broadest portfolio of handheld computers and smartphone products led by the most experienced team in the industry.”

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What is the "One" for?

I.M Anonymous @ 8/18/2003 1:15:10 AM #
How many they will sell?

How many usefull features they will include?

How many years until they are bought by Sony?

j/k

RE: What is the One for
LiveFaith @ 8/18/2003 1:55:14 AM #
You've got to give em' credit they held on the Palm name without drastic change, spruced up the colors scheme and even kept the font style recognizeable. I can't see any change actually helping PSG, but this one gave change with minimum pain and looks attractive.

Pat Horne; www.churchoflivingfaith.com
RE: What is the
HandyMan @ 8/18/2003 2:38:47 AM #
ONE palm to rule them all!!!


RE: What is the
helf @ 8/18/2003 11:11:47 AM #
lol!

Awful Name

kevdo @ 8/18/2003 1:31:13 AM #
Argh... what an awful name. PalmSpring would have been better than this. Truly a sad turn.

RIP Palm, we'll surely miss you.

-Kevin Crossman

RE: Awful Name
kevdo @ 8/18/2003 1:35:47 AM #
I didn't even catch that the "p" in palmOne is lowercase.

That's even worse than than I thought before.

-Kevin Crossman

RE: Awful Name
Ezra4no1 @ 8/18/2003 1:42:52 AM #
Was it even necessary for them to have changed their name? I mean PALM was a well known name. Heck..I mean there are people still calling them Palm Pilot... They Should of done what HP did when they bought out Compaq.. and kept the name iPaq because it was already successful. I personally didn't see a need for Palm to make a change, it will only confuse people more and hurt there name.

RE: Awful Name
LiveFaith @ 8/18/2003 1:58:45 AM #
Ezra,

PSG was forced to make a change based on the spinoff of PalmSource. One of the two seperate companies had to own the original Palm name. The split was designed "early on" in order to appeal to future OS partners. One company producing hardware and the inherent OS, puts the "outside" companies at a development disdvantage (see MSFT vs every other software company on earth).

Had Apple done this earlier on, we possibly might not know the joys of blue-screens & clicking the "Start" button to stop our PCs. But, who knows?

Also, "pilot" is certainly still the lingo, even sometimes for PPCs. But, Pilot Pen Company $lammed Palm in court for infringement years ago for and it's never to return.

More news on the change ...

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/030818/sfm039_1.html

http://biz.yahoo.com/rc/030817/tech_palm_1.html


Pat Horne; www.churchoflivingfaith.com

RE: Awful Name
antikryst @ 8/18/2003 2:02:58 AM #
cumon guys...its not that bad

ive been a palm user forever...i have to admit..ive been used to the palm name. but this new name aint that bad.

maybe its gonna grow on us.



RE: Awful Name
HandyMan @ 8/18/2003 2:20:30 AM #
I don't like the name neither. Will change it to "palmOne" be any less confusing than just "Palm"? Well, I guess at least they changed the colour and logos. I guess PalmSource gets ownership of Palm.com and the Palm logo and trademark?

I wished they would've gone with something completely different. Verizon was successful in their rebranding and so was T-Mobile. Of course, it's hard to give up a marketting freebie like "Palm". So I guess that word had to be in the name one way or another.


RE: Awful Name
FIA WRC @ 8/18/2003 2:23:25 AM #
Like the name, but hate the colors. Reminds me of the Washington Redskins.

RE: Awful Name
Gabriel Morales @ 8/18/2003 5:51:55 AM #
Kevin Crossman?

Are you the English teacher Kevin Crossman?

... In any case, I don't think it's such a bad name. Read my comments below.

RE: Awful Name
palmhiker @ 8/18/2003 9:41:45 AM #
"Like the name, but hate the colors. Reminds me of the Washington Redskins."

Agree about the colors, just doesn't look "high-tech."

Also, what a plain looking logo, looks like the result of a high school contest or something.

In the end, however, Palm will be succeed or fail for their products, service and apptitude at marketing in the face of Microsoft's onslaught.


RE: Awful Name
ScottL @ 8/18/2003 9:53:17 AM #
"In the end, however, Palm will be succeed or fail for their products, service and apptitude at marketing in the face of Microsoft's onslaught."

Finally someone sane. If the products do what you want, does it really matter what the company is called (well OK as long as it's not MS...lol). Don't forget sony. But right now with the T3 coming up palm looks in good shape.

Scott

RE: Awful Name
rexracer @ 8/18/2003 12:46:54 PM #
One thing I noticed at Pa1mOne and PalmSource is that they both have the round Palm logo and the word "Powered" underneath. So does that mean the company names are Pa1mOne and Palmsource and the PDA's will still be Palm Zire xx, Palm Tungsten xx, etc.?

That would be cool, I still have a Palm Zire 71 then, but I still call it my Palm Pilot. Old habits are hard to break, even though I had USR and 3Com Pilots before.

RE: Awful Name
painted_dog @ 8/18/2003 12:59:51 PM #
"Also, "pilot" is certainly still the lingo, even sometimes for PPCs. But, Pilot Pen Company $lammed Palm in court for infringement years ago for and it's never to return."

...then do you think Real will punish them as Real has their RealOne player??

pa1mOne loaded w/ RealOne...

which one is not like the other?

not that names mean much, as long as the product is good, but i for ONE, this its a stupid name.

would a rose by any other name smell as sweet? or would a palm by any other name work as well??? [had to ;-) ]

why not "simply_palm" ...

all for pa1mOne & pa1mOne for all [i hate typing that name w/ the #1 instead of the letter "l" ..ick !

-painted_dog

RE: Awful Name
kevdo @ 8/18/2003 1:22:37 PM #
It is an "L" not a "1". Come on guys.

-Kevin Crossman
RE: Awful Name
killah fury @ 8/19/2003 3:25:07 AM #
What a terrible name! yuk! And that logo looks like it was designed by a ten year old let loose on Microsoft Word with thousands of fonts to choose from. and those colours too... horrible!

bad move Palm.

RE: Awful Name
somas1 @ 8/19/2003 8:42:17 AM #
"Argh... what an awful name. PalmSpring would have been better than this. Truly a sad turn.

RIP Palm, we'll surely miss you.

-Kevin Crossman"

Will you have the b*lls to say that you thought Palm would die because it changed its name to PalmOne 2 years from now? I am still waiting for all those pundits who swore PPC 2000 would crush Palm OS to step up and admit they are idiots.

RE: Awful Name
feranick @ 8/19/2003 10:19:56 AM #
Just a quick note: Litterally speaking palmone in Italian would mean "big" or even "huge" Palm....

In this sense the name is quite appropriate...
Nick

RE: Awful Name
schwarztech @ 8/23/2003 10:50:01 PM #
I'm not too fond of the new name, but I think it will eventually grow on everyone.

As for the colour scheme, I generally like blues and stuff like that, but this might work what they picked. Afterall, it has worked for http://wthr.com (they've been #1 for awhile), so maybe Palm wanted to change their image, but go with something somewhat safe...

Who knows? If anything, it'll make my Vx even more obsolete ;-)

Take care,
Eric

palmOneinfocenter?

theone3 @ 8/18/2003 2:00:18 AM #
so.. does this mean that this site gets a rename? :(

RE: palmOneinfocenter?
LiveFaith @ 8/18/2003 2:10:53 AM #
The site is for the OS ... right? It retains the original name.

Pat Horne; www.churchoflivingfaith.com
RE: palmOneinfocenter?
Admin @ 8/18/2003 2:12:03 AM #
I have no plans to change the name of PIC anytime soon. besides we focus on all devices that run the Palm OS, not just models from Palm Inc or now palmOne

-Ryan

RE: palmOneinfocenter?
hford @ 8/18/2003 2:38:39 AM #
Did you see what they did to the f@#^&*( site?!!!

RE: palmOneinfocenter?
bigfoot @ 8/18/2003 9:48:28 AM #
It's not that bad.

But then since I'm running the iQue I won't need to go there much either.

Cheers,

RE: palmOneinfocenter?
kidA @ 8/18/2003 12:45:58 PM #
i don't think the colors are that bad. and the palmone.com website is actually nicely designed. i just hope they lave the orange and maroon colors to the logo and name. those would make some ugly handhelds.

i'm not living, i'm just killing time.
RE: palmOneinfocenter?
kpr @ 8/18/2003 3:12:57 PM #
I do not like the new palmone.com website since it forces you to turn JavaScript on. How hard would it have been for them just to use normal HTML anchor tags for the links???

The old Palm website did not require JavaScript to be turned on.

RE: palmOneinfocenter?
hudsonhawk @ 8/18/2003 5:07:59 PM #
how about pa1m1nfocenter.com? ; )

Palm trademark

HandyMan @ 8/18/2003 2:29:27 AM #

The "Palm" name and domain assests are now owned by "Palm Trademark Holding Company" which is co-owned by Palm Source and the new palmOne. I guess this lets them get away with using the Palm trademark in their name.


RE: Palm trademark
gfunkmagic @ 8/18/2003 4:34:55 AM #
Does the holding company have any other function besides owning the "Palm" trademark? It's also interesting that it's Palmsource that has the majority ownership of the holding company. I suppose this is to aleviate the fears of other lisencees about palmOne monolpolizing the Palm trademark to their advantage...

Visit http://goodthatway.com/
-better living through better technology.

Change and Comfort

DWD @ 8/18/2003 4:08:02 AM #
I hate change.

There is a certain amount of comfort having your hardware and software made by the same company...a company that has been there since the beginning, unchanged.

This is uncomfortable.

RE: Change and Comfort
Gabriel Morales @ 8/18/2003 5:48:02 AM #
I think this can be a step in the right direction, if implemented properly. The name isn't that bad... It would've been hard to not have "Palm" in there some where. PalmOne- The original Palm PDA maker. Dunno if that's why they chose it, but it seems to make sense!

RE: Change and Comfort
kisrael @ 8/18/2003 12:16:15 PM #
Remember when they used to have "US Robotics" or "3COM" stamped on 'em?

Seems like a loooong time ago.

what does this mean now??

cyruski @ 8/18/2003 5:58:47 AM #
now i'll have a palmOne Zire or a palmOne tungsten? waaah!

RE: what does this mean now??
Spell @ 8/18/2003 9:57:30 AM #
"No, really, it's a pa1mOne Zire 71 running PalmSource Palm OS 5.2, sponsored by Bud Light..."

I'm going to need an electronic organizer just to keep track of how to properly refer to my PDA. ;>



RE: what does this mean now??
DWD @ 8/18/2003 10:09:46 AM #
I tend to ignore name changes. My "pa1mOne Tungsten T" is, and always will be, called a PalmPilot more than anything else.

RE: what does this mean now??
kisrael @ 8/18/2003 10:18:22 AM #
Heh, no kidding.
Hell, I call my Sony Clié a PalmPilot.

RE: what does this mean now??
HandyMan @ 8/18/2003 10:34:14 AM #
Heck, people call iPaqs "Palm Pilot". Microsoft hates that... but what can you do. When you create a whole new market it's hard for people to change. So I guess even if they renamed it Wicket Inc., people will still call it a Palm Pilot.


RE: what does this mean now??
Altema @ 8/18/2003 3:52:32 PM #
Yeah, a friend here at work also calls his iPaq a Palm. Some kids we know were given organizers from a dollar store with a 30 address limit... and they call THEM Palms!

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