Quickies: Layoffs, Software, Office & More

I semm to recall reading a similar story when Motorola unleashed their 1-2 punch a year and a half ago or so of the v60 and then the v70 phones, which basically really saved their a**es in light of the cheaper, flashier Asian phone. Seems Motorola had promoted the phones too heavily on before they were totally de-bugged (which was in itself delayed considerably by the termination/defectuin of many of their engineers) so the phones reached market a bit late and consequently were not quite as cutting-edge as they would have been had they launched several months earlier.

Also, I can't leave out the grand tale of 3dfx's greatly hastend demise due to the never-ending delays trying to get the Voodoo 5 6000 finished.

The bottom end of the PDA market, not just for Palm OS devices but any sub-$200 PDA, has been pretty much saturated between the Zire's big Christmas season, older E-Bay'd or hand-me-down Palms, and the PPC barbarians at Palm's gate (especially Dell). As laptops get cheaper and cell phones get more capable, Palm is going to get squeezed tighter and tighter. I think their best hope lies in precisely the area where the T|T will be with another price drop: the $300 upper-middle class of color handheld targeting the corporate market.

If Palm are smart, they will consolidate their lineup into three or four models (Zire at bottom, T|T at the top, T|W in the wireless end and then (hopefully) either a new top model to bump the existing T|T to the middle-of-the-road, or else a nice Palm III-sized unit as midrange unit to catch all of the upgrade market.

Any tactic that the consumer market views as a blunder (switch to Grafitti 2, for example) can really pull the rug out from under Palm's feet. They should also speed up their product release cycle too, IMHO. Not becoming a Sony by any means, but definitely being more aggressive with price cuts for older models and releasing refreshed versions of units---say a T|T 2 before the T|V (or whatever) hits for the holiday season.

Anyway, I agree that some in the market don't want everything in one device. Problem is, the devices you're talking about with larger screens, etc. really aren't making any money. The success of the Zire shows that all most of the world really wants is simple, yet easy PIM. Again, enter smartphones.

The power PDA users that, for now at least, need two devices just haven't yet been given a smartphone that can do everything a standalone PDA can and still maintain a smaller, sleeker form factor (which pretty much everyone, power user to soccer moms, requires in a cell phone). As manufacturers improve their designs, my bet is that you'll see smartphones which look like the typical small phone you'd see on the market today but with hidden features (pull down qwerty keyboards, horizontal clamshell designs with the ability to go to landscape mode, etc.) Picture smaller, more attractive versions of the Nokia 9290 and Treo communicators.

-Ben :-)

I was referring to Palm SG (the handheld division), not Palmsource.

"it's better to be a pirate than join the navy." - Steve Jobs

Maybe I'll be the one that stops making predictions! ;-)

"it's better to be a pirate than join the navy." - Steve Jobs

jeff

The Shadow knows!

As for my prediction, I don't think Palm OS 6 will be late. Just a hunch, because they supposedly released OS 5.1 and 5.2 on time. Everything seems right so far. If OS 6 comes out mid-fall and devices start to come out in November, that'd be a killer holiday season for Palm OS.

-Bosco
Proud Member of the Top Non-Mods
Members: abosco and ImpReza M3

http://www.pgp.com/display.php?pageID=70

Overall, I have been quite satified with the product. I have beamed encrypted files to other Palm users and they cannot access the encrypted data. I carry sensitive client documents and they is really a nice feature to have on my TT. It is definitely worth a look for anyone that uses their Palm to store confidential information.

Solus Veritas

Sharp Wizard, Psion 3a, Palm Pro -> III, Tungsten T