Palm Reorganizes Marketing Execs
Palm has filled a new 8-K statement with the SEC today. The statement details a change in Palm's marketing executives including the "termination" of the senior VP or Product Marketing, Brodie Keast and the announcement of his replacement.
According to the filling, Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein has reorganized the company's marketing organization to bring more focus to both product marketing and corporate branding, creating two new executive marketing roles that will report directly to him. Kathleen C. Mitic has accepted the product marketing role and, on Monday, June 29, 2009, joined Palm as its Senior Vice President, Product Marketing.
In connection with this reorganization, the employment of Brodie C. Keast, the company's current Senior Vice President, Marketing, will terminate on or about July 15, 2009, following an appropriate transition period. Mr. Keast first joined Palm in late 2006 from roles at Seagate and Tivo.
Thanks to SeldomVisitor for the tip.
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RE: Palm's SVP of Prodcut Marketing is out
RE: Palm's SVP of Prodcut Marketing is out
SeldomVisitor wrote:
Must have been selling Pres like they're goin' outta style, huh?
The Pre is actually selling pretty well, but that doesn't mean the marketing people deserve any of the credit. If anything, the Pre's success has come despite some atrocious marketing decisions.
1) First and foremost, more thought should've been put into the timing of the product milestones. By spacing out the milestones so much, instead of building anticipation, they provoked skepticism.
2) They should've had a plan built around the idea of the Pre getting held at shows. Rightly or wrongly, a lot of ill will in the press grew up around the fact that they were treating the Pre like a diva device.
3) The marketing team deserves to get fired en masse for the Facebook ad alone. That ad squandered one chance to show non-Palm people what the Pre could do (since the Palm people were already familiar with it, by that point).
Despite all of that, the Pre has essentially put a dying company back in the game.. (That's not to say that Palm's survival is assured, but they can at lest start measuring time in months instead of weeks or days). Sure, they didn't sell as many Pres in the first week as Apple sold iPhones, but hey didn't produce nearly as many, and they are a lot more cash-strapped than Apple. Consequently, they relied almost entirely on press buzz and word of mouth.
In short, the Pre's sales numbers are less related to the success or failure of the marketing team than you're assuming.
RE: Palm's SVP of Prodcut Marketing is out
NOTHING has changed about Palm's viability other than a lot of (important admittedly) press. In fact, it COULD be argued that, now that we actually know a little more real information about the single-existing-save-Palm-skin product, the company viability is even LESS. The advertising of the Pre has indeed been curiously strange when Palm needed something more In Yer Face (where's that teenybopper's perfect Palm/iPhone ad comparison vdeo?...) but now we know that the sales of the Pre weren't superlative, either - and they needed to be. And the mainstream Me-Too Media is just now beginning to pick up on the build quality story.
The CEO and SVP of Marketing are out right after a bad launch of THE Palm-life-saving device; the CEO didn't even get two weeks notice. THAT speaks more on the viability of Palm-the-company than any Palm-the-stock exuberant price.
RE: Palm's SVP of Prodcut Marketing is out
Hey Palm! Where's my PDA with Wifi and phone capabilities?
RE: Palm's SVP of Prodcut Marketing is out
SeldomVisitor wrote:
You should NOT confuse stock price with company viability.NOTHING has changed about Palm's viability other than a lot of (important admittedly) press. In fact, it COULD be argued that, now that we actually know a little more real information about the single-existing-save-Palm-skin product, the company viability is even LESS. The advertising of the Pre has indeed been curiously strange when Palm needed something more In Yer Face (where's that teenybopper's perfect Palm/iPhone ad comparison vdeo?...) but now we know that the sales of the Pre weren't superlative, either - and they needed to be. And the mainstream Me-Too Media is just now beginning to pick up on the build quality story.
It's debatable how you define "superlative" sales, but all the analyses I've read so far indicate that the Pre's sales have been strong. As I said, they're not out of the woods yet, but this is certainly the strongest product Palm has put out in years - probably going back to the TX.
In fact, it appears that the Pre is outselling the original iPhone. The Pre is shipping 15,000 per day, while the iPhone shipped 12,000/day.
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2008/01/the-truth-about-the-iphones-sales-numbers.ars
This comes from PreCentral:
Palm Pre sales into the channel in June were above 300,000 units with another 70,000 in May, according to Charter Equity Research analyst, Ed Snyder.To put that into perspective, last quarter Palm shipped just 351,000 phones, though the folks in Sunnyvale continue to be silent about any number specifics, sticking to the words of Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein, that "sales have been strong and growing.".
Other numbers Snyder released included:
120,000 - the number of phones in stock due to start-up problems with manufacturing and uncertainty in demand.
15,000 - the number of units being produced a day
1 million - projected number of units to be shipped to Sprint in the first quarter of production.
That leaves room for Palm to be optimistic, even if they don't have the cash reserves that Apple has.
RE: Palm's SVP of Prodcut Marketing is out
Here's another "analyst" - let's believe him instead:
== "...Palm has sold almost 500,000 Pre units in the first month of its launch..."
http://seekingalpha.com/article/146591-palm-ready-to-break-out?source=yahoo
RE: Palm's SVP of Prodcut Marketing is out
RE: Palm's SVP of Prodcut Marketing is out
SeldomVisitor wrote:
I do not believe "Ed Synder".Here's another "analyst" - let's believe him instead:
http://www.palminfocenter.com/comments/6853/#152826
Hey Palm! Where's my PDA with Wifi and phone capabilities?
hmmmmm
Palm today announced that Brodie C. Keast has joined Palm as its senior vice president, marketing. He is responsible for the company's product strategy and mobile-computing roadmap for consumers, mobile professionals and businesses...
Sounds a lot like what Ruby was hired to rejuvenate.
RE: hmmmmm
RE: hmmmmm
Although, the marketing department has seemed quite impressive imho. I mean, the Centro hit the target and kept the ship afloat. They still have what appears to be strong carrier ties, national & abroad.
How else could this group have succeeded? Back up 3 years and put yourself in the position of the "Marketing Department". How on earth do you get ANY market to travel with outdated hardware and software (horse + buggy) while the rest of the tech world screams by in Enzos & Carreras? Actually, I'm amazed they did so well.
In previous news concerning the departure of Ed C. It appears impressive on the surface that this guy seemed to reach out for help (EdR.), allow / foster enough culture change to allow an actual breakthrough product, then step aside while most everything is rosy, turn over the company to the new star, then fade away. I'm sure this is not exactly accurate, but it sure looks impressive to me. I wounder what the severance was?
Anyway, change is needed at Palm and it looks to be in full swing.
Pat Horne
GREAT - A SVP Marketing appt with no (?) marketing experience
Kathleen 'Katie' Mitic - Executive in Residence at -wait for it - Elevation Partners. She's a Harvard MBA steeped in Internet biz from bubble days.
Hope this turns out well. Would be nice to see a marketing pedigree brought to bear in this marketing wasteland rather than an old-school-boy crony-filled echelon.
Heads should have rolled for the budget spent on the head-scratching Palm Pre launch ad that did little to communicate to an audience of customers wondering why they should not just get an iPhone like all their friends and neighbors.
sigh.
Mike Compeau
redzenmarketing.posterous.com
RE: GREAT - A SVP Marketing appt with no (?) marketing experience
Delusional?
I'm not quite sure I get his line of thinking.
RE: Delusional?
Roughly speaking, they made 50,000 Pres.
Palm sold out of Pres.
SeldomVisitor says "Uh.. you need to sell 3 million Pres to survive".
He's obviously delusional because Palm sold out.
RE: Delusional?
SeldomVisitor says "Uh.. you need to sell 3 million Pres to survive".He's obviously delusional because Palm sold out.
What actually makes you delusional is the idea that Palm needs to sell that many Pres to "survive".
The Pre is obviously Palm's make-or-break device But that doesn't mean that they have to sell 3 times more than the first iPod did in it's first quarter or they fail.
Clearly, your expectations are extravagant, although I hesitate to call them "expectations", because what you actually seem to be doing is setting the bar so high that you can label Palm a "failure" under any reasonable scenario.
RE: Delusional?
Noticing a pattern, are we?
Hey Palm! Where's my PDA with Wifi and phone capabilities?
RE: Delusional?
Get over it guys, either add some real perspective/information like you used to or move on. The Pre interests me, I used to get a lot of good info and help from palm users on PIC, but rants from people who don't even own the product is damaging to this website. Lets get some real Pre users in here with real user thoughts, issues or gripes...
mike cane got over it, you can too!
RE: Delusional?
> than the first iPod did in it's first quarter or they fail...
My apologies for not using variables rather than pulled-from-the-air example constants; I forgot the audience.
So...let's try that =reply= post again, the post where I'm telling someone who apparently is totally braindead, probably from swallowing the koolaid, why a "sellout" means squat when it comes to corporate viability and actually only means something to marketing folks (the same marketing folks, BTW, who have been shown the door by Palm's management - datapoint about sellout/viability right there...).
Anyway, here's that reply again, constants removed:
-----------
Palm needs to sell N million Pres to survive.
Roughly speaking, they made M thousand Pres, for only double digit M.
Palm sold out of those M thousand Pres.
SeldomVisitor says "Uh.. you need to sell N million Pres to survive".
He's obviously delusional because Palm sold out.
-----------
Okay, I understand THAT factual reply is not obvious enough for this audience, so now let's enhance it to the point of ridiculousity, using bogus constants for effect, to make the point clear:
-----------
Palm needs to sell N million Pres to survive.
Roughly speaking, they only made 479 Pres even though the known early-adopter set, the ones who will buy ANY new tech device sight-unseen, numbers in the M thousand range for double digit M.
Palm sold out of those 479 Pres.
SeldomVisitor says "Uh.. you need to sell N million Pres to survive".
He's obviously delusional because ... you know ... Palm sold out all the Pres they made!
RE: Delusional?
------
A braindead poster made the ridiculous comment:
Is it me or is SeldomVisitor the only person who can conclude that
despite the Palm Pre selling out that Palm as a company will not survive?
To address that stupid - really stupid and total lack of thought comment - here's an anecdotal reply:
---------
Palm needs to sell N million Pres to survive [this is the "corporate viability" part]
Roughly speaking, they only made 479 Pres even though the known early-adopter set, the ones who will buy ANY new tech device sight-unseen, numbers in the M thousand range for double digit M [this is the background information needed to understand the next parts]
Palm, not surprisingly, sold out of those 479 Pres [this is the "Palm sold out!" part that, in reality, is as meaningless as it looks but the totally braindead poster who started this thread just doesn't get it].
SeldomVisitor says "Uh.. you need to sell N million Pres to survive" [this is the part that points out that "selling out" means nothing w.r.t. corporate viability when the numbers one has "sold out" are artificially low simply because one didn't have any Pres to sell in the first place]
He's obviously delusional because ... you know ... Palm sold out all the Pres they made! [this final part was simply a "give me a break!" addendum to show my disappointment at the continued lack of thought - TRUE lack of thought - that typically goes into the "attack a poster" posts - or in this case, "attack a poster" threads]
RE: Delusional?
... with livefaiths occasional banal comments....
Oh com'on now. Pat's good people. Anybody who freely offered Palm as much design help as Pat deserves to complain when they never delivered the devices we wanted and he created.
Hey Palm! Where's my PDA with Wifi and phone capabilities?
RE: Delusional?
RE: Delusional?
When someone starts an anti-poster thread with what amounts to an a-MAZ-ingly stupid post, the poster being attacked has every right to call that attacker stupid to his virtual face using whatever is at his disposal.
BTW - reread this thread and understand where I was coming from - as noted later, I forgot the audience here that cannot think past their noses (you explicitly included in that set now and "corrected" my original reply to the stupid attacker by changing constants to variables.
Attacking posters is stupid; attacking posters with ridiculously stupid unthinking no-brain-left posts is beyond stupid.
RE: Delusional?
All of you lot have been told again and again, when it comes to SV, just hit the /ignore switch.
Now look at all the crap here that's not worth reading.
RE: Delusional?
So right. This page used to be a great source of information on Palm but it has become nothing more than a forum for useless rants from "experts". Too bad.
RE: Delusional?
SeldomVisitor wrote:
Just sit on your hands, freakout, because YOU really don't get it.
Really? Thought I managed to sum it up in one sentence...
RE: Delusional?
RE: Delusional?
>users on PIC, but rants from people who don't even own the product is
>damaging to this website.
However, I think we've all (except freak) played around with the Pre and we're all entitled to our opinions and ability to disagree with one another.
That said, I've owned several Palm products in the past. If I felt that the Pre was (for me) an ideal form factor, I'd consider purchasing it.
If the build quality of the Pre was as good as the iphone, I'd consider purchasing it.
If the Pre had an SDK that supported binary apps, I'd consider purchasing it.
If the Pre had more apps. available for it, I'd consider purchasing it.
If Palm was financially stable, I'd consider purchasing a Pre.
I think webos is a good first start, and so far the os has gotten some timely updates. Let's see if it continues.
However h/w qa needs to be stepped up a bit - and the ads so far are pretty poor because they aren't effective at demonstrating what it is about the Pre that makes it a compelling alternative to the iphone or a blackberry.
RE: Delusional?
As the Palm logo flashed, I pressed the power button. Nothing. I held in the power button for 10 seconds. Nothing. Getting frustrated, I tried a few other things. The gesture area seemed to be a cool idea with the dots lighting up. I thought it was clever, and it could have some practical use.
However, when I slid the face upward, I was supremely disappointed with the keyboard. Guys, I'll be the first to admit that I'd love for Apple to find a way to incorporate a hardware keyboard into their design somehow (however, with the new landscape keyboard in all apps, my complaining has been kept down to a minimum). Holy shit. I hated it! I'm a guy of extraordinarily average build, and I felt that my thumbs were obnoxiously large for the keys. To get better accuracy, I needed to type on the tips of my thumbs - almost my fingernails! Completely disappointing.
Meanwhile, a Sprint guy came over and asked if I had any questions. I asked why this unit couldn't move off of the glowing Palm logo, and he said that someone had fooled around with it and broken it. They need to get it replaced.
Maybe some day I'll go back and try out the OS for myself, as that's the true shining point of the device. But from a hardware point of view, I liked how small the device was when closed (although too thick), but I hated how tiny the keys were. I've had much more success typing on the Blackberry Bold.
-Bosco
m105 -> NX70v -> NX80v -> iPhone -> iPhone 3G
RE: Delusional?
abosco wrote:However, when I slid the face upward, I was supremely disappointed with the keyboard. Guys, I'll be the first to admit that I'd love for Apple to find a way to incorporate a hardware keyboard into their design somehow (however, with the new landscape keyboard in all apps, my complaining has been kept down to a minimum). Holy shit. I hated it! I'm a guy of extraordinarily average build, and I felt that my thumbs were obnoxiously large for the keys. To get better accuracy, I needed to type on the tips of my thumbs - almost my fingernails! Completely disappointing.
I agree that the keyboard is a bit small, but I think that it's somewhat a matter of perspective, too. I'm coming off of two years using the Centro, and I like the keyboard a lot more than that device. In terms of the rest of the hardware, the Pre seems exponentially better than the Centro (which started wearing down less than a month after I had it). Now, I've never owned a Treo, so maybe I'm comparing it to the wrong device, but I always thought the Treos strayed too far away from the Palm PDA legacy. The Pre, by comparison, is dead simple, and looks and acts more like a PDA with phone functions than the Treos did.
A lot of people have mentioned the plastic screen on the Pre as a negative as compared to the iPhone, but I think the plastic screen was actually a good move. I've dropped my Pre 4 times so far on to a hardwood floor. If it'd had a glass screen, I would've had to pay my insurance premium on it to have it replaced. Hell, I dropped the Centro in just such a fashion and had to get the screen replaced, and that wasn't even glass, so I think that again speaks of the relative build quality there.
All in all, I'm very happy so far. I'm just waiting for the apps (and reading as much as I can so I can develop my own if I want to. :))
RE: Delusional?
I hate to correct your supposition with fact, but here goes:
if you had an iphone, dropped it and cracked the screen, apple doesn't charge to fix it unless it's out of apple care (1 yr).
btw, that glass screen is pretty durable.
I wonder the shape of any pre, after a year of standard use.
RE: Delusional?
bhartman34 wrote:
I agree that the keyboard is a bit small, but I think that it's somewhat a matter of perspective, too. I'm coming off of two years using the Centro, and I like the keyboard a lot more than that device. In terms of the rest of the hardware, the Pre seems exponentially better than the Centro (which started wearing down less than a month after I had it).
I've been wondering how the two compared. I remember totally flipping out when I first saw the Centro and wondering how on Earth Palm could realistically expect anyone over the age of 10 to type on such a teensy little keyboard. Once I actually used it for a couple of days my muscle memory kicked in and typing was (very nearly) as fast as using the larger QWERTY on my Treos.
Since the Pre's keyboard is larger, all I can do is laugh when people say "too small". There's actually a great discussion thread on the topic over at the new gdgt site...
http://discuss.gdgt.com/palm/pre/general/keyboard-too-small/
...and the general consensus is that the keyboard is just fine.
RE: Delusional?
3. keyboard - while the keyboard isn't smaller than Centro, it is more uncomfortable to use. why? the end of the keyboard is sharp and it slices at my hand sometimes when i try to type. the sides are sharp too. also, the whole keyboard piece (that bottom of the phone) is thin and hard to hold vs. a candy bar. and the device is not balanced properly when open. i always feel like i need two hands to use it. unwieldy and flimsy.
4. slider - i'm tired of opening an closing it to get at the keyboard.
the Pre feels flimsy, cheap, plasticky, creaky, and typing on it feels like you are trying to "type into a plastic cup" as someone on TC noted.
RE: Delusional?
About the keyboard, it's too small. It would be fine if it was of a higher quality, but on all three of my phones (yes I exchanged it twice) there was a small amount of plastic keyboard flex that made it that much harder to press each button. I have relatively delicate hands. The smallness of the keyboard also prevents you from cross-typing. What I mean is, if you're pressing 'A' with your left hand, it's really difficult to follow that up by pressing 'E' or 'D' with your right thumb.
I find myself tying much faster in landscape mode with the iPhone. Pre doesn't have a decent spell checker so that also slows things down.
With all disclosure, I purchased an iPhone after the Pre. I was deciding between the two, and I'm happy with my choice. I really don't like Apple users though. I detest the religious cult of Jobs. I have no bias, I just want whats best for me. I really wanted to love the Pre. Web OS is awesome. But the hardware is a little too cheap, and in Hawaii I had terrible coverage compared to Verizon. The delay on apps was a big factor for me too."
RE: Delusional?
Really? - doesn't work that way in Aus.!!!!! My wife dropped her iPhone the day after she got it and smashed the screen. $300AU and a week or so later we had a new iPhone (and a new case). Perhaps that's just Optus?
Heh heh - the Optus sales guy showed me his photo gallery of smashed iPhone screens. I think ours was the worst though!
Nice to hear someone thinks the Pre is more robust. If it ever gets to Aus I'm sure my kids will put that to the test ;-)
RE: Delusional?
Lizard-Man - the sharpness issue really seems to be a question of personal preference from what I've seen on the forums. I go rock-climbing a lot and have subsequently developed (very!) tough skin on my hands, so I'm not really worried about it.
The slider, though - that could get annoying. I'm so used to having the keyboard exposed and always-available. Makes we wonder if the Eos/Pixie might wind up being the more functional device, even with lesser specs.
RE: Delusional?
Nice to hear someone thinks the Pre is more robust. If it ever gets to Aus I'm sure my kids will put that to the test ;-)
What frightens me most about Pre coming to Oz is the idea that it'll be a Telstra exclusive. Possibly the most Internet-centric phone ever released, and exclusive to the network with the absolute worst value data plans on the planet? Say it ain't so, Palm!
http://www.mobilenetwork.com.au/pages/new/TMBPP.asp
Check it out - $59 a month for a paltry 1GB? It's a bloody rort. You can get the same amount of data on Virgin for $15.
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Palm's SVP of Prodcut Marketing is out
At least he got two weeks' notice.