Latest Round of Palm is for Sale Rumors

Astute readers/follwers of the "biz" can (hopefully) draw all of the connections between these various bits for themselves ;-)

Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P

Sure - but hasn't this kind of situation been the case for 5 or 6 years now? If i had a nickel for every time somebody on PIC alone (VOR are you listening??) stated that Palm was in it's death thows, i'd be able to buy them myself. Hawkins is at least 60% right in his recent interview: Palm is making $$$ and has more control over it's detiny then it has had in 5 years. Maybe Dell (or somebody) is going to buy Palm. But until we see the agreement, this is just another rumour. If they do sell its not from a position of complete weakness by any means. No matter how ticked off fan-boys are (myself included) by certain moves, Palm has been doing OK in general from a biz perspectfive for the last couple of years.

Deja vu...

Of course, this is just my opinion.

All good things...

I'm not sure I believe this anymore (I mean "as much as I ever did"...).

The strangeness w.r.t. the TREO 680 with Cingular is beginning to hint to me that the Cingular relationship might have been the last straw.

Hmmmm. What if Palm adopts my recommended strategy from ages ago and becomes a "rogue" seller of GSM handsets, selling Treo 680s etc. unlocked at the same price or just slightly higher than what the carriers sell 'em for subsidized? People would be willing to put up with a lot of FrankenGarnet hiccups/limited battery life/VGA cameras etc. in exchange for a VERY affordable unlocked smartphone.

Add the colors to the mix and Palm could really clean up the low end of the market, leaving Cingular to test the uncertain waters of the pricey iPhone.

Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P

-Cingular.com has no Treo 680s of any kind availabe

-The local Cingular store (as of yesterday) no longer had their 680 on display.

So the basic possibilities are as follows:

#1 Cingular is in the process of replenishing their 680 stocks with new units (in all colors) as SV mentions the HoFo guy saying. Things will go on as usual as of next week and all of this doom & gloom is just baseless FUD (possible)

#2 Cingular is restocking a fresh batch of 680s in the new at&t branding (possible but probably too early for this to be occuring)

#3 Palm is preparing a major 680 ROM update to bring it up to speed with the upcoming 755p FrankenGarnet and Cingular is temporarily out of stock while they await factory-flashed 680s (highly unlikely)

#4 Cingular & Palm are at war and the 680 is the first casualty of the iPhone opening salvo. The 680 will no longer going to be offered by Cingular (unlikely but always a possibility)

#5 What Beersie described---no more 680s to consumers but they will still be offered through the enterprise channel for the forseeable future (unlikely but it's always possible)

Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P

Almost - the TREO 680 - all colors - has been removed from Cingular.com's consumer web pages - as noted a couple posts above you can go to the business pages and see them but need to call someone to order.

But..you know...wouldn't this suggest all the OTHER PDA-phones here:

-- http://www.cingular.com/cell-phone-service/cell-phones/pda-phones-smartphones.jsp

need to be rebranded, too?

Giggle.

wouldn't this suggest all the OTHER PDA-phones... need to be rebranded, too?

Presumably it would be the same situation for any phone during the transition. When they run out of the old Cingular-badged stock and place a new order from the ODM they'll have them use the new badging on it.

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog

Uhhh, David.....my #2 scenario is precisely what you listed as your #6. They're out of the old 'uns and awaiting the new 'uns.

Sorry, Kris. I guess I had a flare-up of my NIH Syndrome. ;-)

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog

No other technology company listens to customers, collaborates with partners, adds its own significant layer of innovation and delivers relevant technology more efficiently and effectively than Dell. They provide what their customers want to buy and that's their business model.

The last year was relatively challenging for Dell, but they still made a few billion dollars. Nothing to be too ashamed about.

Him? Ha! More likely a shareholder looking for some Pump&Dump action.

So why didn't you ever buy an Axim, Gek?

And that's no kidding.

Case in point:

Between work & home I have to deal with probably 8 or 9 printers. They are a mix of inkjet, color laser & mono laser (with one multifunction inkjet and one Epson 4x6 photo printer).

The printers are a mix of Canon, Brother, Lexmark and HP.

Out of all of those, all of which have been purchaed within the past two years, only two have a Vista driver currently available for download. The others either at best have the lame built-in Vista driver that's horrible crippled & feature-limited. The others simply don't work at all with Vista (even trying to use the XP drivers is a no-go). The HP website promises a driver to be available "soon" for the Color Laserjet, but, much like Palm's Vista support plans, I have a feeling that's going to be a no-go.

Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P

why mess with vista.....

Yep. And someday in the not too distant future everyone will be crying about how the big media companies have got us all locked up so tight that we can't listen/watch our legitimately purchase music/videos in some legitimate way because of the consequences of Vista forcing DRM to be built into every minor piece of hardware. And people will wonder how it ever came to this. And some of us will be able to say, "I told you so." But there won't be any satisfaction in saying it, because we will have all been forced into it right along with all those "sheep" who followed MS so naively.

(There, I feel so much better..., not.)


Thinking about Vista? Think again: http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt
Want an alternative? Try this: http://www.ubuntu.com/