Palm CEO's Philosophy: Sell Razor Blades, Not Razors
At yesterday's speech to the Massachusetts Software and Internet Council, Palm CEO Carl Yankowski told them, "Don't be a hardware company. The margins are very tough. Before you get into hardware, you want to be sensitive to the whole razors and blades thing."
He was referring to razor companies that sell the original razor with a very thin margin but make very high margins on replacement blades. He thinks of handhelds like razors; the original device can be sold with a thin margin because the real profit is in selling applications and services for those devices.
Mr. Yankowski has identified four ways to get recurring revenue for Palm:
- Wireless business services
- Software applications
- Internet access
- Mobile portal access
He finished up by warning about getting over excited about 3G wireless. "Don't freak and overinvest in 3G technology. The pipes are way ahead of the applications and deployment."
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I don't believe Ceo's words
Everyone with a little knowledge in computer and electronics knows that Palm's prices are often too high
Bye
Riccardo
RE: I don't believe Ceo's words
RE: I don't believe Ceo's words
palm has very bad publicity!
"palms limit you to web clipping"
"you can't use ms word/excel on palms"
What do these microsoft commonly said sentences have in common?
THEY'RE LIES!
I use avantgo with my palm, and I can browse in full color and see full color pictures, and acess virtually any webpage.
I have "documents to go", and I can see word/excel files (its a demo, if you suggest me a freeware word editor, I'd really appreciatte it!). And no, I am not limited to web clipping.
If palm showed people these are lies, they'd win even a bigger market share!
**message by ROD**
I don't really plan on buying any blades
well, this could really be a cashcow...
* Software applications
they've set up such an open environment,
there's so much good 3rd party stuff out there,
it's a pretty competitive space (hopefully they
won't try to close out their system!)
* Internet access
* Mobile portal access
ehh, again, the meager success of the VII
makes me wonder if these are gonna be a big hit.
power users who want this stuff might go for
a CE model (at least right now) because of the
better screens.
Services not hardware
At www.palmtop-pro.com, the web-site for a German language magazine specializing in handheld computers (Palm/Symbian/PocketPC), there is also a focus on what can be actually accomplished with a machine, rather than on traditional bean counting. For example, they've reported on the Palm-based "CyberTracker", a program which is helping the bushmen in southern Africa to survive, as well as on how a Palm was used in the Paris-Dakar ralley.
Looks like once Palm's CEO has a good night's sleep and a shave, he'll be ready to take on the world ....
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