Comments on: UBS Downgrades Palm to Sell
In his research note Um notes that Palm is on track for some new Treo products in the August and November quarters (?), and cites the ever increasingly competitive mobile landscape including the 3G iPhone and new BlackBerry Bold. He also states that a Palm turnaround still relies on the success or failure of its new Linux product, which he says won't be launched before the first half of 2009 "at the earliest." (via Tech Trader Daily)
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RE: Short clients
Just wait til ThinkEquity says "Strong Sell"; then come back and spin that one.
Giggle.
RE: Short clients
My own frame of mind caused as slip in my own post. Okay, here it is again, correctly this time:
===============================
That doesn't necessarily apply at all.
Just wait til ThinkEquity says "Strong Buy"; then come back and spin that one.
Giggle.
RE: Short clients
This is about the best news I've heard from Palm in a long time. Wait for the "Strong Sell" recommendation by the ANALysts and then load the wagon. This brokerage house probably just got all of it's institutional investors outta this position and is ready to move em' back in when they get it to the bottom.
This stock recommendation business has to be one of the biggest scams on earth, in league with Al Gore and his Polar Bear Killing SUV routine.
Pat Horne
Fiscal versus calendar
Those are corporate "fiscal quarters" - for their own reason (I literally have no idea why - maybe ease of accounting when offset from calendar?) company fiscal quarters are often offset from the regular calendar. In this case Palm has two fiscal quarters ending the end of August and the end of November.
Coming soon: The touchscreen BlackBerry
Coming soon: The touchscreen BlackBerry
May 14, 2008, 4:01 pm
Thunder, Storm in RIM's forecast
By Scott Moritz
Out of Research in Motion's (RIMM) clouds comes Thunder, to be followed by - what else - Storm.
All the sound and fury signifies something in the works by the BlackBerry maker. Thunder is the codename for a touchscreen phone coming to Verizon (VZ) and Vodafone (VOD) this year. Mobile phone blog BoyGeniusReport was first with the scoop and at least one analyst says it checks out with his telco sources.
Soon after, possibly early next year, a follow-up touchscreen device - codenamed Storm will arrive at AT&T (T), according to other sources familiar with RIM's product roadmap.
Thunder, the first touchscreen phone to be developed by RIM, is scheduled to start selling in November, says Canaccord Adams analyst Peter Misek. That is later than the third quarter timeframe BoyGenius reported, but still in time for the all important holiday buying season.
With Apple's (AAPL) 3G iPhone coming next month exclusively to AT&T and selling at a $200 discount, Verizon is apparently eager to secure its own touchscreen smartphone, and has promised RIM it will sell millions of Thunders to guarantee exclusivity, sources told BoyGeniusReport. Analysts agreed with the logic of such a deal but the details could not be confirmed.
Verizon declined to comment and a RIM representative was not immediately available for comment.
Verizon has been a little light in the smartphone category over the past year. The LG Voyager was not exactly the iPhone killer Verizon had hoped, and the No. 2 wireless shop is just now getting the BlackBerry Curve, a phone that has been popular with AT&T for nearly a year.
Sales volume commitments are nothing new in the industry, says Michael Cote, an independent analyst based in Chicago. Generally speaking, says Cote, "Verizon would like to have a device that launches with them first. And it's in RIM's best interest to establish parity between the carriers. There's not much downside to granting Verizon an exclusive."
Presumably, the phone will be dual mode 3G allowing it to work on Verizon's EV-DO network and on Vodafone's UMTS system, say observers. The combined selling power of Verizon and Vodafone offer RIM a big sales opportunity, according to analysts.
"Both Verizon and Vodafone are likely to devote massive marketing dollars to the campaign, which could lead to another blockbuster product for RIM," Canaccord's Misek wrote in a research note.
The Thunder reports come just three days after RIM introduced it's next BlackBerry, called Bold, which was to have arrived in AT&T's stores next month, but has been delayed until at least August. The unveiling came during a conference for wireless industry developers and analysts sponsored by RIM in Florida this week.
http://techland.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/05/14/thunder-storm-in-rims-forecast/
RE: Coming soon: The touchscreen BlackBerry
Palm's half-decade + of complacency and arrogance has finally backed them into a corner.
For what it's worth, those new August & November products are most likely going to be:
CDMA Treo 800w (August)
GSM Treo 800w (August-ish)
GSM Treo 500 replacement. Possibly even in a quad-band verison for the US market (Treo 550? November)
Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p
RE: Coming soon: The touchscreen BlackBerry
Palm's biggest hurdle is convincing the world that their products are not stuck in the middle of the previous decade. They're not, but that's the perception with the lack of innovation and trickle of lacklustre product tweaks.
I'm amazed that 'Elevation' haven't forced Palm into launching a TX2 in late 2007/early 2008 just to see them through till their Linux platform is ready.
And Access - where's handsets running your new OS?
Bad days behind us... bleak days ahead!
RE: Coming soon: The touchscreen BlackBerry
1. Hardware agnostic, use a few cool form factors from HTC etc.
2. Fill it up with hardware features (screen res, gps, wifi, host usb, bluetooth stereo profile, regular headphone jack and usb sync/charge connectors)
3. Super easy sync/conversion for media and PIM. Lots of codecs. Great playback interface.
4. Sync PIM with Mozilla/Yahoo/Google/Outlook.
5. Wide open developer SDK. Let devs do whatever they want.
I don't think Apple, Nokia or Blackberry will beat that device (yet). Maybe Android will, who knows.
Where's Lefty? iPod Air coming, baby!
Intel Confirms Atom-based Larger iPhone (Mini-Tablet)?
http://www.macrumors.com/2008/05/14/intel-confirms-atom-based-larger-iphone-mini-tablet/
I guess he's been missing from here because his resume has been going nowhere.
Just like ACCESS!
Game Over for Palm: 3G iPhone is KILLAH
3G iPhone takes out Treo.
iPod Air kills TX.
Colligan, meet thy doom. It's name is APPLE.
RE: Game Over for Palm: 3G iPhone is KILLAH
Successful people become successful using Palms...then they can afford it and play with iPhones or give iPhones away to their small employees, customers, the masses so to speak or people who they will keep the secret of their success away from. Hahaha. Cant have too many billionaires or geniuses out there or you will not sell enough iPhones!
Objective
launching a TX2
After the new Palm OS comes out maybe they would consider installing it on a pda.
RE: launching a TX2
A TX2 *WOULD* have helped...had it come out with 12-18 months of the original TX. But now it's too late and even loading this thing up with the absolute best tech that Garnet can support (128mb RAM, 4gb internal flash drive, BT 1.2 etc) wouldn't be enough to sell it with the kind of margins Palm likes to have. Palm's let the developer community wither away to nearly nothing and all of their traditional PDA retail partners have dumped Palm or are about one quarter away from doing so. Even if they wanted to, Palm simply cannot execute. If the iPhone & the flurry of RIM news over the past 2 weeks hasn't made Palm look like a dead company walking, I don't know what will. And how will Palm respond to the surprising success of the Centro....more colors and a bunch of snazzy cases! IMO, they will do NOTHING before Q2 '09 to capitalize on the Centro's success, aside from possibly releasing the Wanda here in quad-band form as a "Centro W" or some such.
Of course, Palm has traditionally released decent handhelds that were simply a year (or more) later than the should've been.
The m500 line should've come out in 2000, not 2001. The Tungsten W would've been a superb device had it been released earlier and not overshadowed by the T|T. The TX basically is what the T5 should've been in 2004. And the Fooleo might've stood a chance had it been released in 2006 instead its planned September 2007 launch date.
But the Treo 700p was probably Palm's worst-ever moment. It hit the market at least 6 months later than it should have AND was horribly buggy when it did arrive. Palm let 18+ months pass between launch of the Treo 650 and the next Palm OS Treo (700p). That's just unacceptable.
Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p
RE: launching a TX2
The pda market is getting smaller as time goes by and its not all Palm's fault.
RE: launching a TX2
In your world the classic PDA may be dead but in my world I know many people besides myself who continue to use PDA's, be it Palm, PocketPC, or even still some Apple Newton hold overs. The fact is no one has come out with anything that has moved the classic PDA user forward and until that happens we will complain and moan about it.
PDA's Past and Present:
Palm TX (Number 2)
Palm - IIIxe, Vx, M500, M505, Tungsten T, TX
Handspring - Edge, Platinum, Deluxe
Sony - SJ22, UX50
Casio-EM500
Apple - MP110, MP2000, MP2100
RE: launching a TX2
At a minimum, they should have used a standard mini-USB connector instead of Palm's stupid proprietary one, and updated the form factor to something more modern. And incorporated the Treo's replaceable battery.
And do much better quality control.
"All opinions posted are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled."
RE: launching a TX2
Once I broke the touch screen in 2007 and I was lost without it and bought a brand new one for $275. Why? First of all I have all my private information on this since
2000. I must have went through six wireless phones. I can do many things with this that I cannot do with a fancy cell phone. And there is free software out there for basic living. I can copy and paste many emails and many forms of electronic documents. Top it off I back these up on my local PC. The T3 is amazing.
I don't use it for business per say, but I will send stuff from work to my home email address and copy/paste stuff there. All my passwords are all copy and pasted into BeSafe or some at low risk into Memo.
I was hoping for a new handheld device from Palm, but reading this discussion makes me think it will never happen.
But I'll tell you that no matter what Marketing throws out there, the Palm handheld
is a very useful and powerful device. Problem is that it does take you about 6 months or more to appreciate what it does, and does not. The "does" outweighs the "don'ts" by 5-1.
Past models I had: Vx, 705i (my first ever email sent wireless!!, T2 and T3(2).
Then I bought the Palm Pilot 1000 (?) for kicks that still has a6 month old batties
and works fine.
RE: launching a TX2
In my stable of old Palm OS devices, I have a Pilot 1000, a 5000, a Palm Pilot Pro w/ III upgrade card, and a VII.
I was recently playing around with my old Pilot & Palm Pilot and realized that they are still imminently useful devices, a dozen years after their release. My biggest grips with the original Pilots were the skimpy memory, lack of a true NES-style d-pad, and missing backlight. Palm at least addressed 2 of those 3 flaws on the Palm Pilot.
Other than an original parallel Zip drive circa 1995 and an old HP Laserjet II that's nigh indestructable, I cannot think of any single piece of computer-related tech I own that's still relevant, usful and semi-supported a dozen years or more on.
Palm has made SO MANY mistakes, especially over the past 5-6 years, that it's to forget the fact that the PIM functions of a Pilot 1000 from 1996 absolutely blows away anything on any device from Apple, MS, RIM et al. But Rob Haitani, Jeff Hawkins, the block of wood in the shirt pocket and the mythical "tap counter" all combined to hit the ball so far out of the park back in the mid-90's that over a decade of negligence and countless competitors still haven't been able to beat Palm at the one thing that made them a household name--simple, effortless organization and data input.
Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p
RE: launching a TX2
Remember the last time they switched connectors? A lot of people were pissed that they couldn't use their accessories.
You can bag on the multiconnector till your arms fall off, but it's really a powerful piece of equipment for hardware hackers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_Multi-Connector <- there's more than meets the eye; could you do all that you can on a PMC with a mini-usb and without writing drivers for said mini=usb? I think not, dear watson.
Best Regards,
Ryan Rix
TamsPalm - The PalmOS Blog
STOP WHINING! If you hate PalmOS so much, get a winmob device and go whine about it on a winmob site!
RE: launching a TX2
You got to be kiddin about Apple Newton users.
RE: launching a TX2
It seems as though Steve Jobs knows the market and how to turn a profit giving people what they want at the right time.
The nearest Palm came to this in recent years was the Foleo. I work in education in the UK and there is a massive market for the EasyPC type device, and now there's a flurry of similar devices coming to fill the demand. The Foleo could have come in nicely and given people what they wanted - if it was at the right price, say no more than £99, which is getting on for $200 I suppose. It could even have stimulated Treo and Centro phone sales with its connectivity etc. Use the Foleo on campus and on WiFi and then with your phone at home or out and about. Instant on. Email, web and Office as Docs to Go nearly perfect. The only thing missing was the Calendar and Address book. It looked as though it was nearly there. Then they can it in favour of harmonising it with a phone platform that will not be ready until 2009 (at the earliest) because they couldn't support both OSes. Well given the gap they could have let the Foleo be overtaken by the second one if it is going to be so good.
If the Foleo kept them going and made a profit they could then handle the problem of the overhead at their leisure whilst making money rather than economically not making a penny in the meantime.
RE: launching a TX2
You got to be kiddin about Apple Newton users.
I work IT in the retail business and what I see are the executives with Blackberry's, I have yet to see anyone with a smartphone, and I see PDA's being used various ways. Managers use the PDA's for Tasks, Notes, and Passwords. Vendors use PDA's for inventory control. Our Pricing Departments use PDA's for Price Verification. Backdoor receiving uses PDA's for inventory control. Most of these people we don't want to have an integrated phone with these devices.
When CompUSA closed it's doors where I live I noticed they were using Handspring Visor Deluxe's to keep track of their remaining inventory. When I took my daughter to Disney on Ice our tickets were scanned by a Symbol (Palm Unit). At least up until last year a High School in my area provided each student with a Palm TX to keep track of their homework, schedule and documents. I know of people who work in restaurants that use PDA's for inventory as well as keeping track of temperatures and documenting accidents.
As for the Newton, goto www.newtontalk.net and click list archives and read through the discussions. People still are wishing for a Newton 2 to come out.
PDA's Past and Present:
Palm TX (Number 2)
Palm - IIIxe, Vx, M500, M505, Tungsten T, TX
Handspring - Edge, Platinum, Deluxe
Sony - SJ22, UX50
Casio-EM500
Apple - MP110, MP2000, MP2100
RE: launching a TX2
RE: launching a TX2
FWIW, the Alphasmart Dana seems to be alive and semi-kicking in the educational field, though they've since come out with a newer model (Neo) running some kind of proprietary, closed OS.
What I'd really like to know is what kind of users/consumers buy those <$50 Sharp Wizard/Royal/Franklin organizers. Those things are so crude that they make the original Zire look like something out of the next century in comparison! Yet they've hung around for ~20 years, essentially unchanged and still on retail store shelves.
I can imagine the margins there are brutal, but I'm honestly surprised Palm didn't keep plugging away at an ultra affordable Zire-style device at the $50 neighborhood. Heck, I imagine there still would be plenty of takers for a Z22 at $75ish (that device was hampered more by poor visibility/marketing and spotty retail distribution than anything else).
Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p
RE: launching a TX2
I was thinking the same thing regarding those sharp wizard devices. You can buy them everywhere but I've never actually seen anyone use one. Prior to PDAs I used the Franklin Organizer myself.
I would think a $99 Palm M500 series looking device running a more modern OS would be a good Organizer Class device for Palm. At least they would broaden their market and have a device that could get people use to their new OS (when/if it ever comes out). It would also help increase the number of developers for the new OS. I'm not sure how much Palm can count on their name recognition alone anymore. Kind of comparable to the Mac Mini or the iPod Shuffle in terms of a starter device.
PDA's Past and Present:
Palm TX (Number 2)
Palm - IIIxe, Vx, M500, M505, Tungsten T, TX
Handspring - Edge, Platinum, Deluxe
Sony - SJ22, UX50
Casio-EM500
Apple - MP110, MP2000, MP2100
RE: launching a TX2
i have not seen anyone use a pda since 2003. there is no significant market anymore. it's over. please let it go.
RE: launching a TX2
And yes I still have and use a VCR!!
PDA's Past and Present:
Palm TX (Number 2)
Palm - IIIxe, Vx, M500, M505, Tungsten T, TX
Handspring - Edge, Platinum, Deluxe
Sony - SJ22, UX50
Casio-EM500
Apple - MP110, MP2000, MP2100
RE: launching a TX2
Think about it: Is the iPhone or iPod Touch touted for its ability to keep you organized? For keeping notes? For making sure you're going to get to meetings on time? Of course not. It's a media player, and a phone. The mass market doesn't care about any other benefits. The rudimentary calendars and note applications in most feature phones are enough for most users (if they use them at all). The thing that I think has changed the most, since the Palm first came out, is the ubiquity both of desktop computers and desktop organizers, as well as text messaging alerts. If I can set up Google Calendar (or anything else) to send an alert to my phone, that function makes up for not having a dedicated PDA's calendar. Contacts and notes work the same way.
Don't misunderstand: I'm not saying I don't like PDAs. I own a TX and a Centro. But the plain fact is, the PDA's time has come and gone. Handheld devices you see now (iPod, iPhone, PSP) are not PDAs. They're for browsing, media, and games, primarily. (The iPhone is a phone, of course, but not a particularly good one.)
The only thing I can think of that Palm could add to a handheld to distinguish itself would probably be a GPS. (And by that, I mean a real GPS system, not a simple system like the Google Maps on iPhone/iPod Touch, but something with turn-by-turn directions, 3D view, spoken directions, etc.)
RE: launching a TX2
Do you still use a 8-track player and reel to reel? lol
RE: launching a TX2
People just aren't interested in PDAs anymore. People want media devices and phones (and media devices that are phones).
How about showing us a study that says that? If there is nothing new to buy, how do you expect high sales numbers? Let them try putting out a new non-winmob PDA and see how well it sells. A limited production run could keep costs and unsold inventory down.
RE: launching a TX2
Is that you Ed?
PDA's Past and Present:
Palm TX (Number 2)
Palm - IIIxe, Vx, M500, M505, Tungsten T, TX
Handspring - Edge, Platinum, Deluxe
Sony - SJ22, UX50
Casio-EM500
Apple - MP110, MP2000, MP2100
RE: launching a TX2
Another good gauge of interest (IMO) is Brighthand's "Most Popular Mobile Device" chart. Nearly 3 years on, the Palm TX is *STILL* firmly entrenched at the #6 spot on BH's chart, well above the beloved Centro. In fact, the iPaq 110, 210, and the GPS "Travel Companion" are also on the list as well.
Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p
RE: launching a TX2
How about showing us a study that says that? If there is nothing new to buy, how do you expect high sales numbers? Let them try putting out a new non-winmob PDA and see how well it sells. A limited production run could keep costs and unsold inventory down.
First, you don't need a study to tell you where the market is going. Do you think that the manufacturers of PDAs (not just Palms) all abandoned PDAs on their own initiative, even though the market for them was strong? But I can certainly reference articles which cite this decline in 2005 (around the time of the LifeDrive and TX):
http://www.betanews.com/article/PDA_Sales_Continue_to_Decline/1130528969
Here's a story on an IDC study from 2004:
http://www.networkworld.com/net.worker/news/2004/1027idcsees.html
Here's one from 2005:
http://www.windowsfordevices.com/news/NS4246182789.html
Here's a story from ZDNet Australia:
http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/hardware/soa/HP-Pen-based-PDA-market-on-death-bed/0,130061702,139241073,00.htm?omnRef=www.google.com/search?aq=f" rel=nofollow target="_new">http://www.google.com/search?aq=f
I guess you get the idea. The market has been declining for PDAs across the board since before the TX and LifeDrive were ever released. Therefore, you can't blame a lack of new devices on the decline of interest. It's the other way around: A lack of consumer interest led (as one should expect) to a lack of new standalone PDAs.
UBS?
Naw...I wouldnt listen to them...probably right..they are just short
Objective
don't shoot the messenger
The imagine what Nova will look like, in the best case. It will need debugging, which means six + months of patches, random errors, and instability. And the third party developer ecosystem will be starting from ground zero, right? How many developers are going to jump into a market just starting out when there are huge installed bases of the other OSes to develop for? That's a tough sell.
RE: UBS?
Summer '08: 3G iPhone, BB Bold (late summer), Treo 800w CDMA & GSM (First ALP handsets?????)
Q3/Q4 '08: First 3G iPhone firmware update, BB Thunder/Storm, Sony Xperia X1 (and many, many other WM handsets), a flood of Linux-powered subnotebooks, first Android handsets, Palm Wanda
Q1 '09: New smaller/cheaper and/or keyboard iPhone FF? WM 7 w/multi touch? More touchscreen BBs? The WiMax floodgates finally open?
Q2/Q3 '09: First Palm Nova device ships, likely utilizing a variation of the 800w formfactor (320x320 LCD etc) and buggy as hell.
The 800w will, at best, be at a partity feature-wise with most of the new devices coming out. But by the time Palm gets around releasing a ROM update for the 800w sometime in 2009, their competitors will already be close to launching followup products & Palm will be wanting to keep milking it for another year+ (ala Treo 750).
Palm's glacial product release schedule was annoying in 1997/1998. It made Palm OS get fidgety in 1998/1999. It caused Palm to lose tremendous momentum to Compaq/Sony etc in 2000/2001/2002. Now it's going to lead to the final demise of the company. In my 12+ years of Palm Inc./Palm OS usage, I've never seen Palm facing such dire straits as they are now. RIM's service outages are going to become a distant memory with the hot new hardware they're cranking out.
I think it's time again for us to ponder that eternal question: Was Cobalt *SO* bad that it was worth making Garnet stick around for 7/8 years instead of the interim 1/2 year lifecycle it was supposed to have?
Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p
RE: UBS?
Nova phone: fewer third party applications, buggy, predictable design, not significantly cheaper... What can they possibly offer to make up for those weaknesses?
RE: UBS?
They pissed away the "available apps" catalog and the developer base for that catalog.
Now all they really have left is the Palm and Treo brand names.
They really need a Steve Jobs-style savior who has a clue to step in. Unfortunately, Hawkins revealed his incompetence with the Foleo, an iMac it was not.
They are toast.
RE: UBS?
RE: UBS?
Palm & Treo branding (and to a much, much lesser etent, Centro)
and the still-superb Palm UI & PIM apps (which technically are property of Access but there's no guarantee that these will carry on in ALP if the carriers don't want 'em)
Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p
RE: UBS?
1.) much sooner to market (i.e. first handsets in June and piles more to follow by the end of the year)
2.) an OS that has been developed over a longer period of time, so less buggy
3.) an SDK available now that has been downloaded by 4+ thousand developers
But even if all of those things are true, it's hard to see that changing the arithmetic. What is the ALP phone offering that Apple, RIM, Android et. al. aren't already offering or perfectly capable of offering if it seems important to the market? Left's answer to that question was always to cite some technical shortcomings of the iPhone and then claim that the market was rejecting it. He was wrong. The iPhone is selling very very well, as are the new Blackberries. So I'm not at all clear on how Access expects to compete.
RE: UBS?
For example, if Verizon wanted its red banners on smartphones as well as dumbphones or Vodafone wanted to go wild with their carousel launcher, Access would be in a position to do that quickly, easily, affordably and with a greater degree of flexibility.
Or someone could offer essentially the same handset hardware but in large-screen tablet flavor as well as QWERTY + touchscreen and QWERTY+ non-touchscreen form (ala Treo 180/180g/500) and ALP could be easily modified to handle whatever kind of input was required based on each device's hardware specs.
And Access could also be there (in theory) if someone or another wanted to do a "clasic" Palm OS UI style device but built on robust Linux underpinnings, pouring some sugar in the gas tank of Palm's Nova efforts in the process.
Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p
Palm CFO: Not Telling You Anything About Our Awesome New OS
Palm CFO: Not Telling You Anything About Our Awesome New Operating System
Dan Frommer | May 19, 2008 4:21 PM
Palm's (PALM) finance chief Andy Brown knows plenty about his company's forthcoming Linux-based operating system, which has been under development for about two years and is set to be finished around the end of this year. (Yes, this is the miracle next-gen OS steered by former Apple engineering guru Jon Rubinstein.)
What does he want us to know about it? Nothing! In a fireside chat at JPMorgan's annual tech conference, Brown refused to answer (with substance, at least) any questions about the OS, other than telling us it will be awesome and that it will be a platform for a bunch of devices, not just one.
In the meantime, Palm will continue to rely on its popular-but-too-cheap-to-make-any-money-off-it Centro and disappointing new Treos, out this summer.
LIVE Notes:
- In the middle of transition. Centro doing well. Trying to get more Windows Mobile products into market.
- Centro best-selling product to date in terms of momentum. (Because it's cheap!) Sprint (S) doing particularly well.
- Won't comment on rumors about Verizon phone. (This one?)
- Seen Centro from $149 to $49... RadioShack, AT&T (T) price subsidies. Would we like gross margins to be higher? YES!
- Had supply constraints. Next step is to drive cost out of product and improve gross margin.
- Any new features? "Wait and see." Won't introduce a new product... "my boss would kill me."
- Comparing Palm OS-based products to Apple (AAPL) products. Designing system, hardware in-house. Ouch.
- Will come out "this summer." Do we have business customers today looking for upgrades? Yes. Would anticipate some level of upgrade cycle.
-Side note: Really enjoying this Flash-based Webcast. Public companies: Get with the picture; stop subjecting people to Windows Media or RealPlayer.
- Elevation Partners now deeply involved the running of Palm. How have things changed? Fundamentally, not a lot. Believed in strategy, future of company. Needed to do a better job at executing, delivering products to the marketplace. Introduced them to Jon Rubinstein. Ex-VP of Engineering for Apple.
- Former Apple exec Fred Anderson also helpful. More instrumental on operational side than anything else.
- No details on next-gen operating system. Based on Linux kernel. Elevation felt it was a compelling investment based upon what they saw.
- Why so excited? At our core, how we're going to be successful is by delivering great products into marketplace. (Really?) Hasn't shown up in financials. Truly believe we can execute on product roadmap.
- No change on timeline. Delivering next-gen OS by end of calendar year. Products first half of calendar 2009.
- Showing off prototypes? Sure, we talk about roadmap.
- Centro unit volumes keep you in the game for now. But arguably losing money in smartphone category, growing at 35% CAGR or so. Windows Mobile product helps margins, brings back to breakeven? Near end of year you'll see fruits of labor on Project X? Suuure.
- What kind of R&D has gone into this? Really easy acquisition target? Not something we started overnight. 2.5 years into development. Not an insignificant development. Starting new OS from scratch is significant effort. 3+ years of dev before it goes out. Wow.
- Haven't discussed whether we'll go back to giving guidance after transition is over.
- Wish you weren't public company? Feels like a public private equity transaction w/ Elevation. From recruiting point, liquid stock. From distraction standpoint, could do without microscope.
- "Best funded startup in the Valley" - good for recruiting.
- How often do you see deliverables of next OS? Sure, I see it a lot. No further comment!
- The big difference is software. That's where our core expertise really is.
- Next-gen OS is a platform for a range of products - not just one. "Clearly more of a platform for a range of products. One of the reasons we canceled a fairly significant product about a year ago was because we felt as though having a one, unified user experience for Palm products was important, that could be extensible beyond one product."
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/5/live_palm_cfo_at_jpmorgan_conference#comments
RE: Palm CFO: Not Telling You Anything About Our Awesome New OS
RE: Palm CFO: Not Telling You Anything About Our Awesome New OS
hey moron - i'm pretty sure i posted it first and then he placed it in the sidebar.
RE: Palm CFO: Not Telling You Anything About Our Awesome New OS
Ryan, referee!
RE: Palm CFO: Not Telling You Anything About Our Awesome New OS
yet you comment over 24 hours after my original post?
RE: Palm CFO: Not Telling You Anything About Our Awesome New OS
What are you doing, using Windows Mobile to tell time?
Forget that Palm 'secret device'
What you want is the Asus e900, baby!
http://mikecane2008.wordpress.com/2008/05/21/the-asus-e900-crushes-the-htc-advantage/
Latest Comments
- I got one -Tuckermaclain
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- RE: Palm brand will return in 2018, with devices built by TCL -dmitrygr
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