Comments on: Palm Inc Acquires Handspring

Anyone know what the name of the new merged company is really going to be?

Palm IIIe/IIIxe/Vx/m500/m505/m515/m550/Tungsten C

This is a step in the right direction. It's still too bad that 3Com spun off Palm only after Hawkins, Dubinsky and Colligan left to form Handspring. IMO Handspring was left with little cash to sustain in the dot.com fallout, Palm lost the visionaries that created the company. I'm confident that the folks in both companies will make this work.

Jeff H. if you are reading these posts ---- Treo 6XX with Phone, MP3 Player, 32MB+, SDIO support (WiFi & Bluetooth) would be a big plus. -----

Pilot 5000/Palm Pilot Pro/Palm III/Visor Deluxe/Visor Platinum/Visor Prism +WDL/Tungsten C*/

*Still in the box unused awaiting the Treo 600 or any new Treo that is OS5 or above, 32MB+, MP3, SDIO (WiFi & Bluetooth) and is supported by someone other than Sprint.

BTW, I just read that Palm gave Handspring 32% of the new company. You have got to be kidding me. Since when is a failing company with loads of debt and no products worth $100+ million and a third of a much larger, possibly profitible comany (with better management)? Five years ago, I would agree that Handspring had the better management, but their record has left a lot to be desired too. Palm's own decisions make me question the future of Palm more than anything that Microsoft and Pocket PC do.

"The Cupertino, Calif.-based company said it lost $8 million, or 2 cents per share, on revenue of $1.47 billion for the three months ended Dec. 28. That compares with a net profit of $38 million, or 11 cents per share, on revenue of $1.38 billion for the year-earlier quarter."

http://news.com.com/2102-1040-980841.html

Let's not forget a market share rapidly shrinking to nil. Or that of the Cargo Cultists.

Apple's market share has been *increasing* in several market segments. Note that their revenues went *up* when many other tech companies were seeing falling sales during the same period. That's hardly a good description of shrinking to nil (Try CBM/Amiga, there's a much better example for you).

What about HS's PalmOS lisencing fees? Somoen wrote on another forum that by merging with PSG, HS will significantly reduce teh lisencing cost associated with PalmOS! Is this true?

----------------------------------------
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."

-Pablo Picasso.

But PalmSG is spinning off PalmSource, its OS unit. This would mean that merger or no merger the both PSG and HS would be paying PalmSource licensing fees for the PalmOS once the spin-off is complete.

Exactly. Apparently, the solution to all of Palms woes is simple: just hire all of the genius arm-chair analysts on this website to run the company. Seriously, "handpring has been failing for 5 years" - i keep reading these over-the-top, exagerations on this website and i have to laugh my ass off. And as for Palm being this huge 'loser company' - I'd say that - a few mistakes aside - they are quite adept at doing what they do. Any other company making $$$ in this industry right now? Gee, HP and Dell are pretty stable - so we don't whine about there impending doom at the hands of bad PDA sales/profit. But of course, they actually lose $$$ on their PDA units, but they have tons of $$ from PC sales. Palm isnt making $$$ at the moment - with a drop of over 20% in PDA sales in the last year nobody is. But they have managed to tread water during the crappiest time for the industry and time will tell how they make it count when the market picks up. All of the nay sayers said Palm would be gone 2 yrs ago - after the intro of PPC. I'd say that hanging onto 40% of the market - and im just talking about PalmSG, not PalmSource - is a pretty good testament to a reasonably well managed company, especially considering who they are up against.

HP has laid off thousands of employees over the last couple years.

> should have put VG, ARM and non proprietary slots 2 years ago.

PalmSG employs competant design engineers, who understand things like software compatibility, component costs and availability in volume, cubic inches in size, refresh power and standby battery life.

I don't know about how things are now after all of HP's recent layoffs, but a decade or two ago HP Labs was among the top engineering research centers in the country.

> forgot to put more memory and transreflective screen?

more RAM and transflective displays are features that have both advantages and disadvantages. These tradeoffs change over time as technology advances.

Note that the TT is not PalmSG's best selling model, but it still outsells many of HP non-best selling models (try comparing unit sales of both companies #3 or #4 selling models for a better comparison). My call is that it's not due to engineering, but because HP choose to license the PDA OS with inferior usability, and doesn't do a great job marketing some of their products either.

-- now *that* made me laugh!!

No, first they'd grab the hardware -- and then slowly twist off the licensing spigot.

And also bring back BeOS to run on the new PlayStation-whatever they'll be doing for 2005 (provided that there is a 2005 -- I predict there will not be).

Wouldn't SONY rather receive licensing fees from Garmin, Kyocera, Samsung, Fossil, etc., than pay licensing fees to PalmSource?

Thanks, robrecht

Hey, I'm up to 1.5 correct so far -- and it's just June!

#1 and half of #2.

(I haven't bothered to look at the rest of the list. I'm lazy...)

http://news.com.com/2102-1043_3-1010037.html?tag=ni_print

And I write all this as someone who cannot stand two tech things: *videogames* and *cellphones*! I loathe them both. Yet I can admire the PS.

As for 2005, that has nothing to do with tech. I shouldn't have brought it up. It will not appear on the official Predictions list. Go about your life as is. Nothihihihihnng will go wngro.

Better heed the wife when she says she wants the "Sony Palm" for her birthday.

Better obey the kiddies when they say they want the PlayStation 9 for Xmas.

Betcha 20 bucks that there is a 2005!

heh.

LOL! Seriously, whether or not Sony actually wants to/plans to buy PalmSG AND PalmSource - i hope to heck this doesn't happen. I think that such a move would be impulsive for Sony - but not good for their makrtshare (of total PDAs in the long run). It would just be Sony versus 100 different PocketPC liscensees - and Sony devices would be scorned by most people eventually because they run what would now be a proprietary OS. People at Palm know this. The question is: how much $$$ will it take to get them to pour their baby down the drain?

Back in the early 80s, in pre-PC days, you would have said the same thing about home computers: Oh, Apple can't win against all these CP/M, et al, makers! What PC makers are there today, really? hp, Dell, Gateway, Sony, and Apple. Goodbye Cromemco, Northgate, etc, etc.

last quarter number, Dell and HP grew, while Palm inc nose dive. Q1 was the first full quarter for Dell.

I am not sure about you, but my math says, you can't take market share from growing number without thinking whatever happen to the big chunks Palm is losing.

I have no idea what you just said. I understood math, but you didn't apply any math anywhere. I can't even understand you anymore.

Palm SG loses marketshare, but isn't a better possibility that they lost their marketshare to Sony? Like I said, they're as large as HP, and Sony doubles every year. You always fail to acknowledge that. Is it because it refutes your claim that Palm OS isn't growing?

As for Toshiba, they're stagnating. If I remember right, their marketshare was in competition with HandSpring near 5%... that's less than Dell.

-Bosco
Proud Member of the Top Non-Mods

.. just add POS to any PDA. Like ketchup, It'll taste better.

"Add a transflective screen in there, and you've just about described my dream palm (the true dream would be no keyboard, but virtual grafitti instead)"

Let's see, make it user upgradable to OS6, add a second SDIO slot or built in WiFi & bluetooth, give it a large battery and the supplemental USB (?) battery like the 600, develop a deal with cheap Verizon 3G data (GSM for people who choose to be born in Europe), check to make sure that the aforementioned VG really means 320x480 screen resolution, have Jeff Hawkins issue a public apology for Handspring's thumboards, use a Palm universal adaptor to insure XT keyboard compatibility, throw in at least 50 MB of usable RAM, and I think we're making some progress here ...

Thanks, robrecht

Well, isn't that NEARLY Sony's TG-Series: No camera, no phone, just OS5, Memory Stick, headphone jack, flip cover, Jog dial and the treo/tungsten style thumb-board?

-Pablo Picasso.

Jon Acheson

"All opinions posted are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled."

I think that's a horribly bad idea. Both Palm and Handspring have great name recognition. Rebranding, especially to something awful like "Palm Solutions Group" would be terrible. PSG is fine for a division within the company but bad as an actual company name.

Palmspring would be even worse.

That said, I do think this is a good move.

-Kevin Crossman

"I have detailed information about the situation...which completely proves that what they allege are illusions . . . They lie every day."

Hey, abosco!! Look who's here in the DAYTIME!!

So, tell me, where's the success of the NEC PPC? And the Razor PPC? And where is that JVC PPC that was shown at CeBIT?

PPC = WeCan'tALLMakeMoney, Inc.

I don't think the Razor and NEC PDAs would've sunk had they gone PalmOS...

Sony revamps the product line starting September. Everything has at least OS 5 and a 200 MHz processor with a 320x320 screen. All Sonys from $200-$400 are based on the T415 form with a .39 inch thickness with much of the area taken up by a battery. The more expensive the model, the more features and specifications are put in. It's the exact opposite of what PalmSource has been teaching all these years, but I'm sorry to say PalmSource is taking the wrong path by releasing specialized licensees. Oh, and the NX line will be revived with a killer machine. Everything the NX80v should have been, plus something new... and I can't quite put my finger on it yet though; I'm normally good at this.

If this doesn't happen... it's bad for everybody. There needs to be a serious revolution. You can't keep having an OS that runs on a $99 16 MHz device on the same thing as an $500 machine at 400 MHz... something's wrong. The OS is dependent on applications, but if I can't get some native file formats in RAM, what good is the OS???

You know what an easy fix is? PalmSource gets off its ass and waves in a licensee for the mainstream market. No entertainment Palms. No business line. No entry level line. I'm not talking about an Aceeca or a Rim-Job. There needs to be Palm-based Axims. The market demands it.

Honest, it's so simple. Sony has the resources for it. They could seriously squash PPC given their best shot at it, but it doesn't seem to be a top priority.

One last thing I'd like to throw in is OS 6. It's either hit or miss. Hit, there will be a big migration. Miss, there will be a big migration.

People have been crying Palm's death for years, and it's never even come close to coming true. But something is dangerously awry if nothing is changed. All about OS 6, Sony's mindset, and a new licensee for the mainstream. Gee, now that wasn't too tough.

-Bosco
Proud Member of the Top Non-Mods

Apple has been gaining market share recently, and gets far more press than their actual market share would indicate. Various brand name regonition studies have "Apple" ranked nearly as high as "Microsoft". Hardly obscure.

Commodore, however, did run itself bankrupt.

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The only way Palm can survive:
-$299 machine, PXA255, 3-400mHz, either BT/WiFi or CF slot.
-OS6.0. whatever it is, it has to look good, plenty of eye candy, fast, plenty of games/multimedia, runs all old sofwares, and more importantly NEW KILLER APPS. (the era of PIM organizer is friggin over about two years ago). Hook to enterprise server/application/whatever else enterprise have.
-refresh Zire2, everything SJ33 can do in stylish package $99-$150.

knowing that?

I don't think Palm Inc can pull it.
I don't see Palm Inc can out price, out feature PPC.
OS 6.0 is nowhere to be seen. OS 5.0 is a no go for anything above $299. Probably SOny can add a couple of gimmicks to freshen up OS 5.0, but even the NX tricks are getting old really fast without stronger OS and more killer apps.
Treo is a basket case, give it up, Too expensive, ugly, no killer apps. Everybody does PIM on smartphones at half the price and double the style dose.

bottom line? there goes another 10% market slide for 2003. Better start selling that Zire at $40 bucks to stem the market share lost.

But Zire is an organizer, people doesn't splurge $90-200 dolars worth of Apps suring its ownership life time...

so.. back to squre one.

next Palm killer app: bundled Hangman!

Are you really predicting that there won't be cell phones in 3-5 years???

MS will kill PPC in a few years (actually let it die of neglect).

Why?

1) It already has overlapping capabilities compared to XP & Office. In 2 more years there will even be greater overlap. Surely no one here is stupid enough to think that MS will allow anything to threaten their OS & Office monopoly.

2) MS gets about $15 for PPC & Pocket Office. They get about $300 for XP & Office. If PPC starts making up any kind of significant sales, it will start hurting the OS & Office numbers.

3) PPC sells in a year what XP sells in 8 hours. In reality the entire PDA market is a pathetic tiny little niche.

4) XP handhelds nearly PPC in size are running in labs now. In 2 years they'll be PPC size, weight, battery life, and nearly as cheap. *I'm* getting an XP handheld when they get down to this.

5) PPC hardware makers and MS are all losing money on PPC.

6) PPC business customers are typically MS shops, and will quickly dump PPC for XP handhelds in order to reduce support and internal product development costs.

etc, etc, etc...

These things are easy to see if you look at the market and not device specs.

As for Palm, all those device specs you list are meaningless. They're something a techie would write.

PIMs are going to grow big time. That era is really just starting. (Very few people are using pims right now.) But at only 2M devices a year, Palm just won't be able to keep pace with Nokia, which is looking for over 100M a year.

Palm has 2 years to nail down as many vertical markets as possible before XP handhelds start making a big splash.

4. in two years there won't be handheld and smartphones as we know it. Haven't you learned? Palm Inc thinks it can keep seeling IIIxe for another 3 years, and suddenly find out how fast the 90's party can turn south. They try to cook up a quickie 5.0... well we know the result.

Microsoft is betting on all tables, .CE tablet, XP tablet, PPC. Let them compete and see which one floats. Is Palm ready in 2 years if suddenly .net suddenly fire up the market? They aren't even ready when iPAQ 3650 cought on. Let alone trying to predict .net tablet which is sold in different category than handheld.

5. Tell that to HP and Dell. ANd also try to explain to all OEM in Taiwan who adopt PPC in droves. Did you see Mitac, FIC, Acer and tossing out 2-3 Palm models each quarters? You didn't think they are all stupid jumping into money loosing market do you?

6. Well, and all enterprise desktop market are XP shops. along with 90% of all PC market. Guess who will still winning in that scenario you mention? Palm Inc? ... hmmm..

As for no cellphones, PDAs, in 3-5 years: nonsense! I will always want a PDA, even if I have to buy the damned things used and stock up. As for cellphones -- I don't care. Owners will probably die of brain cancer anyway (oh, you wondered what those headaches were?).

As for TabPC -- someone else said it best: Hard to swallow! Haha!

abosco, no not embedded XP, the version that's on tablets. After all, what's a PDA other than a small tablet?

There's a good reason I said 2 years. Obviously technology isn't there for it to be done today. But in 2 years it will be. In 2 years Intel will be able to bring out a MCM (multi-chip-module) with a 1.5G processor, flash, and 256M memory, for <$75 and using less power than today's 400Mhz arm chips. Then throw in the new ultra-small HD that just came out.

I'm an EE who works in the EDA industry (electronic design automation). I've got a pretty decent idea about what's coming up and what will be possible. Heck, I'm probably understating things.

In 2 years I see no reason why these won't be possible. (Now if someone will actually make them, I don't know. But I bet that someone will.)

Yes, the software selection is there, and the OS is very advanced, but the point of PPC to begin with was to allow quick access to data more than anything else. With Windows other than CE, you're going to need to boot it up, or you'll have to put up with a clumsy Windows GUI to find your information. You want to get into your date book? Start, programs, then find your datebook on the list. Wow, what speed that has rather than just tapping on the date book button.

Point is, I'm sure the technology is there, but I'm not sure people want that technology.

-Bosco
Proud Member of the Top Non-Mods

She is very evil too.

Palm stock closed up another 10% today. That's 30% in two days. That's 56% in three weeks. I'd say they are headed toward a fine 2004 at the moment. But who knows, it could rise another 50% after the close of the merger later this fall.

No offense, please, but this sounds like the HR double-speak I know all too well, having worked for small-tech-company merger targets in the past.

Consummation is a given. The axe will be falling... the only question is exactly when. The smart ones will leave, and soon. The worker bees will stay until the end, and further glut the job market. I don't think HS has the cash for a stay-to-the-end incentive program, but kudos if they do.

It's interesting to note that Handspring shareholders will end up with almost 1/3rd of the combined hardware company, even though, according to the last Q's financials, Handspring had around 1/10th the gross profit, 1/7th the revenues and 1/4th the cash of Palm. The deal might mean that Handspring held some interesting patents, or had some valuable technology deals tied up; or it might mean that PalmSource (which Handspring shareholders won't get any of as part of the deal, but Palm shareholders will) is seen to have a such a high valuation after the split that the SG/hardware portion is only worth in the neighborhood of half.

Both PalmSG and HS currently pay fees for the use of PalmSources OS. PalmSG buying HS won't change this - the merged company will still have to pay fees for the use of the OS. The question is - will the combined higher number of units sold result in a lower fee based on greater numbers? I don't know the licensing structure for Palm OS - perhaps somebody who has a clue can chime in with some thoughts on this.

Of course you can, as long as you also book an equal amount as offsetting expenses, thus netting to zero. Lots of large multinational corporations do this, and legally.

>Enron tries that awhile back...

Enron tried to book just the income, and all the expenses went to semi-fictional partnerships.

(but IANACPA)

http://www.treocentral.com/content/Stories/229-1.htm

Of course. All the PalmOS licensee's weren't internal. And, as MS has proved, OS licensing can sometimes be a pretty decent business. Especially if one is the market leader, as PalmSource has been for several years.

I mean why on earth anybody keep seeling block of stock worth under 10K so periodically?