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    Palm Q2 FY08 Conference Call HighlightsPosted By: Ryan Kairer on Tuesday, December 18, 2007 4:11:17 PM
Colligan started the call off by expressing his disappointment in not meeting expectations for the quarter saying "we did not execute as well as we needed to." He pinned most of revenue shortfall on the failure to get the Treo 755p certified and released on Verizon in the quarter. In a latter followup question Colligan said the process was affected by issues with previous devices. He went on to state that due to the Palm OS being an older system somewhat deficient in its multitasking capabilities was some standard network operations issues not visible to end users, which in turn caused a delay in getting the product approved.
Palm Centro Success
Talking about specific new products going forward he said Palm is "done with adjustments" and is focused on working on breakthrough designs, UI's and functionality. During the quarter Palm's revenue mix was 81% smartphones and 19% handhelds. 73% of revenue came from the US, while 27% was International. Smartphone shipments were flat compared with the previous quarter with 777k shipped with 680k unit sell through. Handheld revenue was down 39% from the previous quarter at $67.2 million. Palm shipped 372k units with 323k unit sell through.
Futher Palm models In response to a specific question Colligan revealed that Palm has no plans to make the Treo 500 available in the US. He said the model would continued to be focused on international markets.
Layoffs The following audio clip is a quote from Ed Colligan addressing the Treo 755p's certification issues.
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Article Comments
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 RE: The Ed and Andy show
Wow you've changed your sentiment. I think that one can only get burned so many times by the same company. RE: The Ed and Andy showwildmantrader @ 12/18/2007 11:23:20 PM #
I am a trust you till you f@#* me over type guy, then I am your worst enemy. At that point I will do everything in my power to make your life miserable or remove you from control. My investment is not upside down as the ROC of $9/share made me more than whole, actually my cost is still negative. These guys just have no idea how to run a company. Ed is the biggest lightweight I have ever listened to in a CC. He needs to get the eye of the tiger and start ripping some a#*. He accepts way too much failure from his employees and demands way to little.
RE: 19 per cent
That fact was a huge surprise. Two years after introduction the TX, et al are 20% of their sales and they are just writing the segment off. Look at the interest in the N810 and the new Ipaqs. There is a legitimate, sustainable market for a larger screen PDA. Too bad they don't, or won't, see it. Heck, even a generational update to a TX would be welcome. RE: 19 per cent
Mike & Jimn, I fully concur with your assessments. What on God's green earth are they thinking? Nobody mentioned the iTouch, which is a lightweight compared to the ancient sub-$299 TX in a lot of ways. If Palm had just listened to a few folks around here 2 years ago concerning keeping the handheld biz going imagine where they would be today. Imagine what % sales would be then. Just visualize freedom from the likes of VZW and it's "delay" of releasing your products. Staples doesn't do that. If Palm had just listened 4 years ago and just continued to upgrade the T3. Even at their glacial pace, a profitable PDA market would have been owned again by them. No Palm aint got the innovation horsepower to produce something as svelte as the iTouch. But they could not be in process of copying that part while laughing at their wimpy device in comparison to the 2007 model T7 with slim metal body, 600mhz, VGA, 128mb, SD, BT2, Wifi(G), 3.2mp cam, with flash, video cam, voice recorder, web browsing w/ Flash & Java support etc. All this could have been done on rickety old Frankengarnet as we prepared for the release of Palm OS II. This may sound outlandish, but it's not that far fetched. Had they just taken the T3 (slider form or not) and just incrementally added the features with the same engineers. Nothing radical and nothing outlandish. Just build on previous successes, stabilize and improve old weaknesses, and keep slimming and modernizing the form factor when possible. Even adding some thickness, weight, and a GSM/CDMA functionality would be possible. Seems like somebody out in CA is doing pretty well with a HVGA keyboardless phone right now. Had they done it, this site would be brimming with news and new posters. Palm would have a strong and probably quite balanced product offering and still a strong presence with it's dying retail channels. Instead we must watch the wheels come off one by one as they abandon a profitable markets and grow stagnant in another. Hopefully the new management team is going to shake this mess up a bit. Unfortunately, today may be to late to get back in the "PDA" game. RE: 19 per centBaalthazaaR @ 12/19/2007 5:37:41 PM #
Unfortunately, today may be to late to get back in the "PDA" game. I feel that it is still not too late, providing they focus on quality and innovation(i.e. read this site given that can't seem to come up with anything). They could improve the hardware quality and features and patch up FrankenGarnet(only for the immediate future) with the ability to upgrade the OS for a reasonable fee to the new POS II / PLinux. That could even give them a cash infusion towards completing the POS II / PLinux. About the possibility, I'd say definitely doable. Probability though is very low, but there is a Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinnati, and that could count as pigs flying (wild imagination required). RE: 19 per cent
Sorry, but no, I must disagree. Garnet is a piece of shit, period. It is buggy, it has destroyed the Palm Ecology, and even trying to graft Classic Graffiti into it produces less-than-satisfaction. If Palm is foolish enough to still produce the TX and TE, they should (immediately*drop their prices to $49 and $99, because that's all they're worth, period. Fine, let them put some makeup on those pigs and rebrand them (TZ and, ooops not TF, TG), and then drop the frikkin price (to try to escape the wrath of TE and TX buyers who were dumb enough to just buy them) -- but make them $49 and $99. And then come back with *real* PDAs when PalmOS The Linux Edition is ready to come out and play. As for me, I'd rather have a T2 or T3 or maybe even a color Sony OS4 machine over the TE2 and TX -- and especially over my goddammed LifeDrive. Apple still believes in the 'PDA' .............buckeyetex315 @ 1/24/2008 10:33:04 AM #
Quote from Fortune web article "Apple could shock the naysaysers" (emphasis mine):
Last is the iPod touch. Largely glossed over in Apple’s earnings announcement was the executive team’s emphasis on the fact that the company doesn’t view this thing as just an iPod — it’s a wireless computer. And the iPod touch will fully come into its own at the end of February, when Apple opens the door for outside developers to build software for it. What the iPod touch becomes then is an open question. Will Apple invent a way for it to become a viable gaming platform? Will clever engineers come up with cooking programs, GPS attachments, video recorders, or other ideas to spark demand for the gadget?
Brent RE: 19 per cent
Is Apple’s Tablet The iPod Air?
http://mikecane2008.wordpress.com/2008/01/23/is-apples-tablet-the-ipod-air/ Buh-bye, Palm. Colligan: RESIGN!!
 some interesting bits from the transcript
Full transcript from Seeking Alpha: http://tinyurl.com/2ojktf These were two bits that interested me: 500v not going Stateside: Larry Harris - Oppenheimer Colligan says Garnet stinks, better hardware coming (but we've heard that noise before): Michael Abramsky - RBC Capital Markets
RE: some interesting bits from the transcript
They need a BROADER product base? Is Ed a ****ing idiot or what? So they have, lets see, 3 operating systems (windows, palmos, and fooleo loonix, and that's not including the palmsource one that got canned, and oh, the access linux platform that they were going to be using). They have 2 radio standards to certify against (cdma and GSM, and no doubt 3g at some future point) Then they have the treo range, the handheld range (both TXs and the like, and the low end ones), the centro range, and soon the fooleo range. They are right there are gaps; the centro is palmos, cdma. The treo 500 is windows GSM. Where's my palmos GSM? But honestly, they need to do an apple here, not a Nokia. Create one, or perhaps two, insanely great platforms, with a slew of variations on them (the iphone and ipod touch come to mind; different products, but a huge sharing of the basic platform). RE: some interesting bits from the transcriptSeldomVisitor @ 12/19/2007 8:38:51 AM #
Colligan was totally unambiguous about what to expect by the end of 2008: == "...Jonathan Goldberg - Deutsche Bank [The transcript is wrong about who said it, I think, so I'm sticking with "Colligan said" without listening again to the actual recording] RE: some interesting bits from the transcript
palm is nearly dead at this point - any guesses as to how low the stock will go today? It should easily dip into the $4 range RE: some interesting bits from the transcriptSeldomVisitor @ 12/19/2007 8:49:25 AM #
When it goes below $5 there are (usually negative) ramifications beyond mere PALM-the-stock valuation. RE: some interesting bits from the transcript
"There’s nothing in my mind that’s an acceptable excuse for it. We should have done it. The reality is one of the things we’re dealing with that I think is reasonably unique relative to at least the SmartPhone suppliers is we have an older operating system here that is sometimes in certain multi-tasking situations is challenged relative to standard network performance issues." In other words: there's no excuse, but I'm using our aged operating system as an excuse. Then he goes on to say that it shipped with known bugs, which Palm had determined were not really "issues", or worth being fixed. No wonder I don't want to own any Palm hardware or software any more. Ed Colligan just doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut. RE: some interesting bits from the transcriptBaalthazaaR @ 12/19/2007 10:35:33 AM #
Doesn't he mean "But we’re working on absolutely breaking designs, breaking the user loyalty, breaking UI and other functionality on next generation systems, That’s innovation in a different way, taking a lot of functionality and packaging it in a compelling package at a great price point. Yeah we can't think of any other features to innovate away so lets bring down the price a bit and pretend that is innovative. We really thought that one up by ourselves. RE: some interesting bits from the transcript
Time for the vacuum packs and placement over in the calculator section Ed. Get to it. Pat Horne RE: some interesting bits from the transcript
The original Pilot was definitely a breakthrough design. The Palm V--and a generation later, the m500 perfected it--was an icon AND a breakthrough design. The Visor Edge was a sleeper hit and almost was a breakthrough design. And Handspring's Treo 600 was a breakthrough design that still had a few bugs that the 755p finally ironed out (about 2 years too late but still...). The iPhone is definitely a breakthrough design that's still a work in progress (No removable memory slot? Come on!) Now, Ed, WOULDN'T it be easier to craft a breakthrough design on a PDA first so that you can test the waters without having to wait for FCC approval and then carrier approval/testing? Finally, I don't believe a bit of that "75pp delayed by Verizon's testing" story. Sprint runs on CDMA and so does Verizon. If Sprint saw that the 755p was fit to ship " as is" back in May than I think it was purely a $ negotiation/pissing match type of situation between Palm & Verizon. Verizon feels burned by the under-spec'd 700w and again by the hideous 700p ROM update fiasco and has never been a huge POS fan even in the days of the Treo 600. I think Verizon has had the 755p's sitting in a warehouse for months (look at the dated app bundle & ROM contents for proof of that) and has just been haggling and feuding with Palm ever since. At any rate, I'm more intrigued by Ed's comments about "Palm OS productS" in 2008.
RE: some interesting bits from the transcriptbuckeyetex315 @ 12/20/2007 5:48:55 PM #
^^ @ LiveFaith The voice recorder section is EXACTLY where BestBuy now has the Palm PDA products in S. Austin TX stores - and on the back wall of the store to boot. They don't even have actual working demos anymore, just the wooden ones. With the upcoming demise of CompUSA, I'm not sure anyone has actual working unit in retail stores any longer.
RE: some interesting bits from the transcript
Franklin Covey stores still do, AFAIK. Other than that, no one else other than the Palm kiosks/stores.....hmmm, I cannot think of any major chains.
Well, I think SOME Staples stores in SOME markets still do. The last Staples I visited, there was a Z22 (working) on display, a T|E2 actual unit that didn't work, NO TX's, and a single WinMob unit remaining (didn't check it to see if it was functional).
WTF did Colligan say?
Let's see (quoted from above transcript): >>>But we’re working on absolutely breakthrough designs, breakthrough user experience, breakthrough UI and other functionality on next generation systems, so we’re as I said we’re not stopping at anything short of revolutionary and fantastic design on at least our next generation platform products WTF?! Would this guy KNOW a breakthrough if it broke through his skull?! Let's examine the record: http://mikecane.wordpress.com/2007/09/07/dumbass-of-the-year-ed-colligan/ Yeah, right. Not holding MY breath! RE: WTF did Colligan say?
What are you talking about? The *current* PalmOS doesn't ship in any functional products, either. You thought you had news?!
Resign Culligan!tryingtoquit @ 12/19/2007 2:09:11 PM #
How can that nit-wit (can I say this on line) ignore 19% of his market. This when he does everything he can to make us forget the TX ever existed. We do not want your smartphone in a box, we do not want it with a fox. We would not want it on a train how can we make it any more plane. Give us a TX2! RE: Resign Culligan!
Be careful whatcha ask for round here. The TX2 may come in at $299, 1 inch thick, 320x320 screen, bundled with a mail-in rebate for a free Palm branded 32mb SD card. :-o Pat Horne RE: Resign Culligan!
Pat; Don't forget the extra holiday bonus on that TX2 of a free gold-colored Palm stylus thrown in alongside the 32mb SD card! :-)
RE: Resign Culligan!
They should each come with a personally-signed letter of resignation from Colligan. Then I'd buy two! RE: Resign Culligan!wildmantrader @ 12/19/2007 11:31:13 PM #
If it would get his resignation, I'd buy ten.
Asus EeePC: The head shot to Palm
I just emailed this mini-fondle report around: I got an email today from J&R saying they'd gotten in the Asus EeePC. Since I was going to be in the city today, I decided to stop by there on the rare chance of being able to drool ^h^h^h^h^h fondle one. But they didn't have one on display. They had FOUR! One was the black 4GB version. The other 3 were the $299 versions (512 RAM/2GB storage) -- and these were white with *color* covers! One light blue, one light pink, one light green. Plastic: The plastic is *not* at all toy-like. It is a very thick, solid material with a slight texture for anti-slip. Not reflective at all! Weight: Wow, it is light! And tiny. Of course these didn't have the batteries in them -- running off AC -- but LiON batteries are generally featherweight, so the overall weight would still be just remarkable. Finish: Except for one point -- coming up -- the build quality was just *excellent*. Really, for that price it just slayed PDAs similarly-priced. This is a high-quality product. No rough edges, everything fit together well. And the hinge was great too. Keyboard: Oh boy, here it comes. Several points here. First, yes, it is tiny, and my first attempts at typing were filled with typos. As I progressed and this time took more care, the typos decreased. I think I could get used to that keyboard, but I'd have a slower speed in the beginning. Now here's the bad thing about the keyboard. The keys are apparently attached in their center and there is some lateral wobble to them. What this means is that the keytops can all go off a straight line. And believe me, it looks *ugly*. In fact, looking at the keys all askew, I was getting *dizzy*! This effect was *very* pronounced with the white keyboard. On the black keyboard, the same effect is greatly muted (I think due to the shadows sinking into the overall blackness and therefore counteracting the skew). God, I just couldn't live with that white keyboard. I'd get nauseous having to look at it!! I went through the interface tabs. Launched OpenOffice's WP and typed into that. I didn't think OO was slow to launch. And I was using the *$299* model. I also opened Firefox, but WiFi wasn't on (and I wasn't going to hog time on the machine with other people there, plus I had other things to do today). I didn't have any problem using the trackpad. It was responsive and accurate. The edge click-thing was a bit off -- it tended to register a press as a double press. There is probably something in Settings to select the sensitivity, but I didn't get to that. Some people had used the webcam to record themselves, so I got to test video playback that way. The cam capture was *very* good and the speakers were *loud* (and remember this was in crowded J&R!). Oh the screen -- it's just *gorgeous*. I don't care that it's only 7". It was very bright, displayed great color variation, and text was *sharp*. My overall reaction is: SANTA, BRING ME ONE!! (The BLACK one, dammit!) It was speedy, it was shocking. Asus has created a *revolution* here. Notebook prices can *never* be the same after this. In fact, if I was Sony, I'd consider this One Big Wake Up Call. Sony has put out similarly-sized units. Why can't they do one to compete with the Asus? It doesn't have to have the same specs, but they could do something for $750 instead of their usual **$1500-$2000-plus** for that size. If you haven't thought of buying one, you should. This thing screams Must Buy all over it. =================== If Jeff Hawkins has *any* self-respect (and any relationship to reality), he should be thoroughly *ashamed* that he tried to shill that underpowered Foleo to us. Asus has done it just about right. I'd like a better keyboard, but I could live with the one it currently has (though dear god not not not the white one!). It'll only be a matter of time before Asus is, uh, influenced by the Foleo's standard-sized keyboard and uses that idea. For all intents and purposes, the EeePC has killed the Foleo. Palm would be idiots to try to compete. They have nothing to offer. RE: Asus EeePC: The head shot to Palm
Yeah, I actually got one of the eee PCs the other day, and I must say - VERY IMPRESSED. Got a black one. I went into Myer in Sydney and had a look at the white demo model. The sign said they were out of stock, and I asked the guy behind the counter "how long". Mid January was the reply. So I asked "any other colours available?". Yes - they had a couple of black ones out the back (!!!!). ANYWAY....got it home, and yes it's beautiful. Very good quality, apart from the mouse click for the touch pad. This doesn't seem to be terribly well executed, so I just tap the pad instead. So I boot it up, and about 16 seconds later we're in business....the interface looks very Palm, with tabs for all applications - Internet, Work, Learn, Play, Setting, Favourites. I haven't wored out how to change the location of the loaded apps on the tabs, but the Favourites (well, it's spelt 'Favorites') allows you to place any app shortcut there. Like Mike I found the keyboard a bit small, but as I'm not a touch typer, this was not a huge thing for me. The touchpad is very sensitive (again, not sure where the settings for that is, as it is not on the settings tab), but I did plug in a MS wireless mouse that works a treat. Three USB ports; an SD, Micro SD, etc port, VGA out - which, by the way, allows yous to use a normal screen with internal and external, or just external screen on, and a selection of resolutions - plus line for mic and speakers. Apps include browser (Firefox), mail (Thunderbird), word, spreadsheets, PDF viewer (Open Office), paint, video manager, music, webcam, messenger, dictionary, games, etc. Lots of stuff under the hood. You can add additional programs, but the "personalisation" is limited to colour scheme. I also updated my wireless broadband (through Vodafone) from PC card to USB modem, and gave that a shot. Very easy setup. Broke it open in the car on the way home from the Vodafone store, and buy the second set of stop lights I had internet connection. The system also allows for dial-up, but I don't like sticling forks in my eyes.... Why did I get it? I work for a small company that supplies on-line workflow systems. I have to do a bit of travel, and I hate having to lug a laptop around for presentations and checking email in the hotel room. I was looking forward to the Foleo, as I believe it would have been perfect for my job - so I could ditch the laptop, buy a desktop (as I do development work and need to access databases) and use a portable to access the web and email. The eee PC fits the gap nicely, and the boss is going to buy one for all the guys for that very reason. Note that I don't want an all singing, all dancing machine - if I did, I would use the laptop - I just need something that I can open and check emails quickly, edit proposals, demonstrate a website, and do so without having to carry around a large backpack. I think Jeff Hakins was right in his assesment of the future of mobile comms and work platforms. "Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." Sir Winston Churchill RE: Asus EeePC: The head shot to Palm
>>>so I just tap the pad instead. Oh, I hadn't thought of that! Hmmm... can you do multitouch? Two fingers downward to scroll a web page, like a MacBook? RE: Asus EeePC: The head shot to PalmSeldomVisitor @ 12/23/2007 9:45:31 AM #
Install a touchscreen and tap the display instead of that dinky touchpad: -- http://jkkmobile.blogspot.com/2007/12/asus-eee-pc-with-touch-screen.html [as a related aside - it's pretty amazing to this reader how fast cool mods - software and hardware - are coming out for the EEE. Looks like Asus has a humongous winner with the geek-REAL-hacker crowd.] RE: Asus EeePC: The head shot to PalmSeldomVisitor @ 12/23/2007 3:15:01 PM #
There's a consignment shop near me named "New to You" (*). Same thing applies to that EEE touchscreen when someone dredges up touch capability. ====== (*) There's probably a consignment shop near everyone named "New to You"... RE: Asus EeePC: A Small Niche Product
this is a small niche product with a dubious market. just because it's your dream device doesn't mean the masses will buy it. IMO, it suffers from the Fooleo-syndrome. BlackBerry and iPhone are the real threats to Palm. now stop acting so silly. RE: Asus EeePC: The head shot to Palm
1. The masses are buying it. 2. It would have been a competitor to the Foleo, if Palm had released the Foleo. 3. Agreed that since Blackberry and the iPhone are direct competitors to Palm's smartphone line, they are the real threat to Palm's survival, not the Eee PC. "twrock is infamous around these parts" (from my profile over at Brighthand due to my negative 62 rep points rating) RE: Asus EeePC: The head shot to PalmSeldomVisitor @ 12/24/2007 6:51:05 AM #
> this is a small niche product with a dubious market... Perhaps true. However... I'm heading to the store TODAY (member of The Procrastinator's Club?) with my youngish daughter to see if I can see one, though admittedly not necessarily buy one. For her. Because she doesn't play local-based games or do much of anything uSoft-PCish on our rocket. She surfs a lot, plays downloaded music, sends way too many e-greeting cards, and plays a LOT of web-based (probably java-based) games. I have a slight feeling the relatively-small size of the EEE just might fit her to a T (indeed, my only concern would be the small screen size, not the small keyboard size). And I'd bet there are quite a few parents out there thinking along the same line for that first personal computer for their kid(s). Ease of use - check. Kid-sized - check (but we'll see what the kid says of that). Relatively inexpensive - check. Safe from computer viruses - check (pretty much). Can do what needs to be done, even doc processing - check. RE: Asus EeePC: The head shot to Palm
it's a waste of money that will collect dust unless it's running windows or mac os.
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Colligan also spent a good amount of time explaining how this is a transitional time period for Palm and how they are focusing on their long term vision. He spoke of how they are focused on strengthening the product development team with the new Chairman, 
Let the name of Ed and Andy be stricken from every book and tablet...stricken from all pylons and obelisks, stricken from every monument of Palm. Let the name of Ed and Andy be unheard and unspoken, erased from the memory of Palm shareholders for all time.
http://www.meredy.com/yulbrynner/bedone.wav
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