Ed Colligan States Palm Not For Sale

Amazing.
Funny how a company can spit and turn its nose on free money.

I still maintain that if anyone is going to buy Palm it's going to be someone with strengths in networking (Cisco/Linksys, Nortel, D-Link) to leverage the Treo into a carrier ball-busting cellular/VOIP hybrid. OR it may be someone whose strength is in flash memory like Sandisk who could then really go after the iPod with a Treo sporting 8gb of flash.

Then you have Asian darkhorse contenders such as Asus or Foxconn who are flush with cash and want a slice of the "real world" wireless pie in America by buying a name company like Palm.

At any rate, I think TVoR is within shouting distance that Palm has <1 year left as an indepdent company. 2007 is going to be when we see the wind go out of the Treo's sales, but I have to admit that the Treo 680 is a very strong offering as long as the price is right. That's going to be very good for buying them some additional time, especially in markets outside of the US and Western Europe.

Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P

Panasonic should buy it

I suggest you follow the link below and keep yourself informed:

http://panasonic.co.jp/corp/news/official.data/data.dir/en051209-3/en051209-3.html

Face it, the 750 and 680s are on old technology... the treo "looks" have not changed that much, unless you include the removal of the antena.

Then there are the people with 700s that have not seen an update to the software, but then palm releases a 750... go figure... you purchase a $400-500 device and get left cold.

I'm starting to think that people who want a pda are in the minority... axim has not seen an upgrade, palm is not releasing a new pda... hmm... makes you wonder.

Although, hp is releasing this: http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF05a/215348-64929-215381-314903-f96-3263043.html

Vote for John Kerry... best man for the job.

There are a lot of reasons why this company would be a good acquistion

It's all very easy to be a cheerleader and inanely shake those pom-poms but it'll be more constructive if you can actually name several of those reasons.

Who are the "we" in question in your post? Do you work for Sagio?

Now that the flood of Treos (4 in '06, 5 if you count the wx and w as separate entities) have been unleashed on the market what's left for '07?

Other than possibly refreshing the 700p/700wx in the 680/750v formfactor for domestic CDMA carriers, what else can Palm do with the existing formfactor?

Face it, the original Treo 600 FF has nearly milked so dry that it's about to turn to dust. The 680 has essentially perfected what Handspring came up with 4 years ago so it's time to move forward in a major way.

Palm's treading water right now but they need to address the utter lack of FF variety & screen sizes in the Treo line PRONTO, as well make a statement on whether or not they are putting all of their conventional handhelds out to pasture, as well as the future of FrankenGarnet/non-WinMob devices.

Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P

I was thinking the same thing about the colors. Makes me laugh when people write that the new colors will make them sell like hotcakes.

Palm is trying to imitate Apple's fruity colored iPods.

Also, from what I understand, they have a much more user friendly OS coming out sooner than most people seem to think that will breath new life into their Palm OS. And check out the rate of growth in this segment over the next three to four years... it doesn't take a brain surgeon to realise that if they get even a small percentage of that market, they will be just fine.

http://biz.yahoo.com/e/061005/palm10-q.html

and use your browser to search for the phrase "deferred tax assets". When you take that into account Palm's profit simply doesn't look as healthy.

I hope that you as a small time investor doesn't get burned big time by this company.

some great new 'comsumer' oriented products coming out
Palm's already played all its cards for this year - nothing else is coming out before 2007.

much larger geographic footprint coming and (an area they have been remiss in recently)
Last time I checked Palm have been selling its smartphones worldwide (except maybe in Japan or South Korea where let's face it, only a crackhead would buy a Treo instead of the local smartphones which are light years ahead of the Treo. Don't believe me? Just visit www.palm.com/jp and see for yourself, it's a mighty quiet site).
Therefore Palm's "geographic footprint" is the same unless they're getting orders for Treos from little green men on Mars.

an effective and cool 'mass' marketing campaign (which they previewed at their presentation last week.) for their new products.
Two men holding up smartphones during a presentation does not make for a mass marketing campaign. Besides how can you know it's effective when you can't even buy the product! The only true measure of an effective campaign is how many Treos 680 are sold. What's the figure for 680s sold to consumers today? ZERO!

much more user friendly OS coming out sooner than most people seem to think that will breath new life into their Palm OS.
Palm OS is no longer being developed. New user friendly OS counts for jack - just look at what happened to Cobalt. Apple's Mac OS is meant to be more user friendly than Windows; I've not seen Apple Macs get 50% marketshare nor Dell or Microsoft filing for Chapter 11 - have you?

And check out the rate of growth in this segment over the next three to four years
Funny, just over four to five years ago they were making the same predictions about PDA growth - how everyone will be walking round with a PDA in their pocket. Prediction is a dangerous game - just look around at all the Palm OS licensee gravestones: Sony, Acer, HandEra, Tapwave. Hell nevermind licencees, even PalmSource, the supplier of Palm OS, has been assimilated by the Access collective!

if they get even a small percentage of that market, they will be just fine.

Yes, if is the keyword. If Palm continues to release products which compared to competitors offer mediocre features at extravagant prices then it'll be getting either a very tiny percentage of that market or 100% of no market at all.

Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital. Aaron Levenstein

Palm's already played all its cards for this year - nothing else is coming out before 2007.

Yeah, but we still have yet to see how these products will fare. If you believe an unnamed "Vodafone representative" (http://tinyurl.com/wjzrw) then the 750v has been quite a hot seller in the short time it's been available, but the Treo 680 isn't even on sale yet!!

I mean, sheesh. It's still too early to be hammering the nails into Palm's coffin.

Tim
I apologise for any and all emoticons that appear in my posts. You may shoot them on sight.
Treo 270 ---> Treo 650

"I'm not near as concerned about my return on investment as I am concerned about whether my investment returns."

Pat Horne

btw, it's too bad this board is so relentlessly negative cause many of you seem technically savvy. I hate to say it but it reminds me alot of the tone on the RIMM boards when they too faced their 'demise' because of the patent mess... and look what's happened with them since.

Surf, I hope you do well and I hope Palm does well for all our sakes. That being said, the above statement kinda bothers me. All of the Treos that you see in LA are already sold. Investors don't make money off of those.

Palm has some serious landmines to navigate, and their sidegraded products for the past 3 years do little to reassure the faithful that the ship is on course. It was the small group called Handspring that saw the smartfone craze before it arrived. Only they were able to produce the products that led the way. Since Palm has bought them, successful innovation is all but non-existant.

Investors make money off future performance, not the past.

Pat Horne

I just think the ship will stay on course/get on a fimer course with some more new products in 07 plus the new OS I've been hearing about from my friends up North... (Palm OS, not the Winmob version.) which is supposed to be a major major upgrade...

Call me bullish but I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is...

I hope you're observing the "eggs and basket" proverbs on this one tho.

Pat Horne