Palm Opens New Retail Stores

And I, too, would sure like to see new product - especially if it's something that makes me want hop off the Metro at Reagan National to take a look.

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PalmPilot Pro (1997) -> III (1998) -> Vx (1999) -> m500 (2001) -> m515 (2002) -> ???

Aren't most of the retail shops @ Reagan past security? Ie; you can't get to them unless you are a ticketholder and/or have a security pass?

Ryan;

It might be a good article for PIC to have a bunch of us regulars who are all around the country go into a couple of the Palm retail kiosks/stores incognito and list our experiences there. It might help illustrate the huge disparity in store staff experience/knowledge and, honestly, help Palm (or whatever mobile tech retail entity it is that runs the stores for Palm) go about better training & equipping the store personnel.

I still maintain that the real way to draw traffic into those stores is to offer, essentially, a gimmick. Some limited edition model such as an 8gb instead of the usual(?) 6gb LifeDrive2 or a black Treo with real aluminum accents or something. Just have it available only on Palm.com and in the company stores.

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

How many Palm company stores have you been into? Are the salespeople utterly clueless ("gold USB 1.1 cables are just as fast as USB 2.0") or just moderately so ("The LifeDrive's HD has more storage space than any SD card on the market")?

I've just been in two Palm stores...one was one of the newest stores (had the "Palm" logo in orange) and had a pretty decent selection of travel bags & 3rd party stuff. The other one was a kiok right when they started opening them. The clerk was completely clueless and actually suggested I seek out a Franklin Covey store for a better selection of accessories.

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

I agree with the impression of "cluelessness" from many Palm store employees. When the local Staples chimps have more knowledge and less sales pressure about Palm's products than Palm's store staff, that's not a very good sign for long-term viability.

At 2 of the kiosks I wanted to try one of the few third-party cases, and was flat-out refused the honor because "they are out of stock." They had the demo on display, but apparently they wanted to be hostile to their known customers (I had my Treo right there) because they didn't have the prospect of an immediate sale.

When Palm's representatives work so hard to wreck what's left of their goodwill for apparent selfish interest, it doesn't seem the stores are doing much positive for the overall Palm strategy. I'll have to check out another store soon to see if anything has changed in recent months.

You can't miss the bright orange Palm logo!

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

It'd probably help Palm to aggressively try to slow the erosion on that market as well as reach some newer markets as well. Palm's declining "fleet wide" battery life probbly isn't helping matters. Come out with a new Palm with an SD slot and the ability to go 3-4 days on a single charge and there are many profssionals who would snatch it up. All it'd take would be a T|E2 style unit with a Treo 650 or larger battery and some honest-to-goodness powper management/underclocking software standard.

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

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

While Palm may have ignored the Library market, other licensees at least had them in their sights, so its a shame the PalmSource dynamics pushed them all out.
Remember that this was years back now, but note the Digital Library Assistant on this HandEra page.

http://www.handera.com/Services/PalmOSProjects.aspx