Comments on: Palm Ad Campaign Positions It as OS Supplier

I would have to agree. I've owned a Palm IIIx for two years now, when I had the decision between a Palm V and mine. I decided for the 3 series b/c of it had more ram (wow, two megs extra!) and more support.
Now, two years later, I'm looking for something with more. I want multimedia support. I want to record voice memos. I want color. And I want enough ram to actually do something.

Where can I find that now? In a Compaq iPaq. And it seems inevitable that I will get one. Why? Because it has terrific application support? No. Because it is rock stable? No. Because it is faster with more features? Yes. I love my Palm, and if there was any way around it, I would buy another. But, I'll probably have to wait two or three years to get the features that are NOW available in a PPC.

I'm tired of Palm and Handspring nickle and dimeing us with 'oooo! 8 Megs of ram!', or 'oooo! 16 bit color!'. They need some real advances, or they're going to give up their market.

Palm has to consider not only what you "power users" want, but what most consumers (most of whom
aren't electronics enthusiasts) think is important. Thus a PDA with all the latest bells and whistles
that costs $400-$500 is going to seem like a colossal waste of money to a businessperson who just
wants something to replace their paper scheduler. If you want to play MP3s and watch movies on
your PDA, go buy an iPAQ and quit whining about Palm's lack of support for those activities. But no-one
who just needs an organizer (90% of Pam's target market sector) is going be able to justify buying a
PDA that costs more than your average stereo system or DVD player. By the time the price of the
color screens and fast mobile processors drops enough to make them attractive to the average consumer,
I think you'll discover that Palm has caught up with the PocketPC crowd in terms of power and multimedia
features.
I gave a Palm IIIx to my mother for her birthday last year, and she doesn't care that it has a B/W display
and only 4 Mb of RAM or a processor that's not state-of-the-art. She's just delighted not to have to carry
a paper address book and organizer around whereever she goes. The Palm weighs less, is smaller and has
enough memory to store her addresses, appointments and the entire NKJV version of the Bible with plenty
of space left over. She'll probably be using it for the next 4 years or so, if it lasts that long and never
even consider using it to play MP3s or watch video.
Criticizing a Palm for it's lack of multimedia features is like comparing a car to a plane and criticizing the car
because it can't fly. Cars aren't designed for the enthusiast but for the consumer, so they're mass-produced
and incorporate only those features that the vast majoity of people will need in order to keep the cost down,
while airlplanes are much more expensive and more difficult to use safely, but offer features unavailable in a
more economical mode of transportation.

Um, no. That would be the deathknoll of the Palm. Good marketing will increase revenue and increase number of Palm owners; increased revenue means faster development and cooler technology. Increased number of Palm owners means independent software developers will have a larger market and increased incentive to create and upgrade their software. Everyone wins.

I could list all of the failed technology products that I really enjoyed using which failed because they weren't marketed correctly, but I won't because it would probably fill the server up.

So here's a few:

Amiga, OS/2, GeoWorks for PC, DR-DOS, DesQview, 3DO, and once at near-death, Macintosh.

Today, I sit on a Windows PC because Commodore, IBM, and GeoWorks didn't put enough effort into marketing their superior technology. So the average, uninformed consumer (those would be people who don't read websites like this one, for example), used Windows because they thought it was the only thing or the best thing out there.

It's sad but true: people only buy the stuff that's most heavily promoted, regardless of whether or not it's the best product available. (another example: do you _really_ think people listen to Britney Spears or the Backstreet Boys because they're great musicians?) No one researches technology purchases unless you're in the technology field, and it's naive to expect that people are going to start now. Think _broad market_: Palms should be as ubiquitous as wallets are, and the only way they'll get there is with great marketing.

I really enjoy using my Palm; it's the first computer since Amiga that I actually enjoy using. I'd hate to see it disappear for the same reason that Amiga, OS/2, and GeoWorks did: poor marketing.

I don't think they could spend enough money on marketing, in fact. Marketing gets people to use your product, and having lots of people use your product gives you money. It's pretty hard to go out of business or run out of development funds when a zillion people use your stuff.

So, kudos to Palm for having the foresight to increase the longitivity of the platform with a solid marketing plan that will increase revenue so Palm can keep developing new products or develop them faster. It's great to see them avoid the mistake that has killed 'technologically superior' platforms like Amiga, OS/2, and GeoWorks in the past.

You people are nuts.

A: The whole reason Palm is awesome is because it gives people like you and me the ability to deveelop and share software - and it provides the OS. If they had a team of lets say 20 developers, wouldn't that limit the software output? Instead there are tens of thousands of people who have access to all the tools and software they need to develop and customize their Palms.

B: They need advertising. They need people to know that the Palm isn't an exspensive caculator & address book.
-Seething Hebrew, NYC

People don't seem to understand that Palm is actually 3 seperate entities!

Palm Device - these guys make hardware and LICENSE the OS from Palm Platform (below)
Palm Platform - these guys own the OS and the software and LICENSE it to multiple LICENSEES such as Palm Device, Handspring, Sony, Nokia, Motorola, Symbol etc
Palm.net - these guys own the Palm.net service, and everything that revolves around it

So the advertising is specifically the Palm Platform guys getting some limelight - 'bout time too. People need to realise that Palm are more than just hardware - and that it's the software that actually makes it all tick!

Good move guys - I applaud it, as both a Palm device owner (multiple licensees), and as a Palm stock holder.

Unfortunately the ad campaign will be useless. Everyone knows what a freaking palm pilot can do. Wow. Lets show people using one. WHO HASN'T SEEN SOMEONE USING A PALM DEVICE?

That Chahill guy drove apple into the ground and left right before they made a comeback, coincidence, I think not. He was director of marketing and made MORONIC commercials that made most people go: what the hell would I want a mac for? They emphasized ZERO of the reasons why anyone would want to buy a mac and he'll do the same dynamic job for the palm platform.

I'd say the number one reason that palm is making any money right now is that the devices are so fragile that people go through them quickly and have to buy another. Most people I know buy 1 palm a year as opposed to a computer which is more like 1 every 2 or 3 years because palm screens break so easily.

If there's any money to be made by advertising, it would be by Compaq who makes such an amazing iPaq handheld that makes even a color palm look silly. Of course the demand for the ipaq is so high right now that ads would only make the backorders longer...

Palm needs LESS ads and MORE development. If they're going to bet the company on the os, they're going to LOSE eventually unless they do something real soon.