No Further Treo 650 Shipments to Europe

Posted By: Ryan Friday, June 30, 2006 12:26:07 PM

Palm announced in its latest quarterly conference call that no more Treo 650 shipments will be sent to Europe because of new European environmental laws. The smartphone will be available from carriers until current inventory runs out. Palm has also promised a new Treo model designed for European markets before the end of the year to replace the Treo 650 and comply with the RoHS directive.

European Union's Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) law prohibits the use of lead and five other toxic substances in electronics equipment takes effect July 1st. Internal components in the Treo 650 smartphone contain lead and the current model is not in compliance with the new standards.

Palm has said that they have made sure that European distributors received a final large shipment before the deadline. However, no further new Treo 650's will be sent to the EU from Palm.

Palm has said that its next Treo smartphone will be targeted at European markets and is lead free and in full compliance with the RoHS law.

Palm CEO Ed Colligan stated that Palm wants to get its new European product into Europe "as soon as possible." He went on to further indicate the upcoming model is not likely to become available until Palm's 2nd Quarter in FY 2007, which would be in the October - December 2006 timeframe.

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No smartphone for Europe?

jackpipe @ 7/1/2006 6:41:20 AM #

Man, what a f**k up.

Palm will have had ample warning about this deadline, and would more than likely have had the opportunity to switch components/suppliers, etc.
Was someone simply asleep at Palm (actually, is anyone there awake??) - or is there a good economic reason why the treo couldn't have been jigged into compliance ?
In any case, the result seems to be that Palm no longer have a smartphone in the European market, since the 700x don't seem to be available.
Oh sorry, you can still buy a treo 600 apparently. Or does this fall under the hammer too?

F***ing Clowns.

Would the last one out please switch off the lights.

RE: No smartphone for Europe?

Surur @ 7/1/2006 7:12:37 AM #

They were not caught by surprise. It was a conscious choice not to invest further into an old device. The problem was that the WM device they were going to replace it with has been delayed (as they often are).

Surur

They said I only argued for the sake of arguing, but after an hour I convinced them they were wrong...

RE: No smartphone for Europe?

SeldomVisitor @ 7/1/2006 7:34:43 AM #

They also apparently are not losing much business by not having a product in Europe.

Yes, read that exactly like its typed. From a transcript of the CC the quality of which I do not know:

== "...It’s got some impact. There’s no question about that. It
== is not significant, but it’s real..."

RE: No smartphone for Europe?

jackpipe @ 7/2/2006 11:38:51 PM #

Well yes, products get delayed. I guess they should have built a bit more safety into the schedule.

But in any case, someone obviously decided that a WM device would substitute for a palmos device - ie they made a decision not to offer a palmos device to europe - or at least, to gamble on the supply pipeline for the palmos device.
And if not having a product for Europe does not have much impact for palm, I'd say they need to get their finger out of their arse regarding selling to Europe.

A first step might be to come up with a device that has some European-style flair to it - ie get rid of the stupid antenna. It might say 'Hey this is really a cell phone, look how connected I am' in the States. It says 'look how clunky and clumsy looking my mobile is' in Europe.

RE: No smartphone for Europe?

scstraus2 @ 9/20/2006 6:39:46 PM #

No, based on what I've seen from Palm, it's incompetence pure and simple. They are the commodore of the handheld world.

Great....

KultiVator @ 7/1/2006 6:46:25 AM #

...so despite having the Treo technology centre open in Ireland, Palm didn't see this coming and now have absolutely no Palm OS SmartPhones on sale in the European market until the end of 2006 in all likelihood.

Not clever.

Palm's output of new models really has slowed to a crawl... they do need to pick their game up and deliver a good selection of innovative product with good sleek looks - both in the PDA and SmartPhone sectors.

RE: Great....

SeldomVisitor @ 7/1/2006 7:54:45 AM #

> ...now have absolutely no Palm OS SmartPhones on sale in the
> European market until the end of 2006 in all likelihood...

That is not quite true.

PALM outright said they stuffed the European channel with environmentally-incorrect TREO 650s before the June 30th deadline! From a transcript of the CC the quality of which I cannot vouch for at all:

== "...June 30th is the last time we can ship the Treo 650 into
== the European market."
==
== James Faucette – Pacific Crest
==
== "Okay so for the months of July and August, you won’t have any
== real shipments into Europe?"
==
== Ed Colligan
==
== "Correct – of SmartPhones, that is correct. That’s also
== shipments into Europe. We’ve obviously thought about this, and
== tried to put some product in Europe in our various
== distributors and carriers such that we can continue to satisfy
== some end-user demand..."

Thus they have LOTS and LOTS of smartphones ready to be sold in Europe!

When that channel-stuffing is accounted for is an interesting question, IMHO! Was it accounted for in the just-reported quarter or is it going to be accounted for in the to-be-reported August quarter?

And, inquiring minds wanna know, what if they can't sell them for a "good price"? How do they account for THAT?

And, inquiring minds wanna know, how will the introduction in the final months of 2006 of the "GSM TREO 700" affect the selling of all those channel-stuffed TREO 650s and how will THAT be accounted for!?

Gotta luv the game, eh?

===

What I also found interesting about that CC, BTW, was a lack of mention of anything about nonEuropean nonUSA.

RE: Great....

scstraus2 @ 9/20/2006 6:42:21 PM #

They've never sold for a "good price" in europe. To this day it is 699 euros to get a treo 650 (approximately $850) How many europeans do you think will pay that when you can get any other phone for half that price.

But no one ever said palm knew what the hell they were doing, did they? I hope not.

your last chance to snap upu a Treo 650 in the UK....

KultiVator @ 7/1/2006 6:56:55 AM #

Anyone looking to pick up a 650 before they're withdrawn from sale in Europe might want to take a look at the following URL...

http://euro.palm.com/uk/en/privatesales/index.html?sssdmh=edc1.153689

But it seems this offer is only valid until this Sunday (2nd July) - so you'd best be quick.

KultiVator

Consequently...

ChiA @ 7/1/2006 6:48:05 AM #

there's no Treo being offered by Palm in a market of 380 million people (ie the wealthy European Economic Area [EEA] citizens) with similar spending power to the 298 million people of the USA, at least not until the new Treo arrives in (hopefully) September. The total EEA market (which is all the European Union plus Norway and Swtitzerland) is around 467 million people.

I noted from the conference call that Palm got a quarter of its revenue from the rest of the world. Putting two and two together it seems that Palm has previously either been unable or unwilling to take the European market seriously or that it has already conceded much of Europe to competitors. After all, I doubt Treos even get a second glance in Nokia's home turf - Finland. You want proof? Visit http://euro.palm.com/fi/ . Palm hasn't even bothered to translate the site into Finnish!

No Palm smartphone in Europe until at least September seems to suggest little change in ability. Reassuringly, Palm's recently opened smartphone centre in Ireland seems to suggest at least a change in policy.

Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President.
- President Theodore Roosevelt

RE: Consequently...

SeldomVisitor @ 7/1/2006 7:48:17 AM #

Slide #17 of the CC presentation says PALM got 24% of their revenue from nonUSA markets for Fiscal Year 2006 but only 22% for the last quarter. They did not show, relatively speaking, what the same quarter last year came in as (last CC they did, showing an approximate $16 million drop for the same quarter year-over-year; this time they didn't show it at all...this suggests another drop, IMHO, but I'm too lazy to go back a year in filings and see if they mentioned nonUSA revenue then to compare it with now).

RE: Consequently...

SeldomVisitor @ 7/1/2006 9:10:14 AM #

Well..okay, I went back to the fiscal 2005's filing, etc - it turns out that PALM lost an average of about $10-ish million per quarter in nonUSA business from then til now:

-- http://finance.messages.yahoo.com/bbs?.mm=FN&action=m&board=1600640725&tid=palm&sid=1600640725&mid=253210

Consensus

ChiA @ 7/1/2006 7:15:47 AM #

Three different posts from three different people saying the same thing about Palm in Europe!

Look's like Palm has dropped the ball (yet) again!

Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President.
- President Theodore Roosevelt

So that's how I got that tumor...

Scott R @ 7/1/2006 9:49:08 AM #

Am I the first one to ask just what's so dangerous about these 650's? Should I schedule a physical?

http://Tapland.com
- Tapwave Zodiac News, Reviews, & Discussion -

RE: So that's how I got that tumor...

SeldomVisitor @ 7/1/2006 10:27:24 AM #

Excess lead (Pb).

Eat one and ya get MadHatter's Disease.

RE: So that's how I got that tumor...

AdamaDBrown @ 7/1/2006 10:03:18 PM #

SV is correct--the new EU restrictions have to do with lead levels. Most devices don't have that much lead in them, but the new EU rules mandate an even lower level. I can't remember if it's entirely lead-free, or 99.something percent lead free, but it is a bit of a change.

RE: So that's how I got that tumor...

Scott R @ 7/1/2006 11:18:19 PM #

Well, it doesn't surprise me that they ignored the EU on this one. Us users have been telling Palm to "get the lead out" and release more models quickly, and they've been ignoring us, too.

Ba dum dum. :p

http://Tapland.com
- Tapwave Zodiac News, Reviews, & Discussion -

RE: So that's how I got that tumor...

SeldomVisitor @ 7/2/2006 8:18:47 AM #

> SV is correct...

My feeble old synapses were only partially correct - though the symptoms of lead poisoning approach those of Mad Hatters' Disease in some cases that particular problem is caused by mercury, not lead.