Palm struggling to survive
 

A couple of years ago I sadly predicted Palm was not long for the cell phone world. I take no pride however in news that reports it continues to slide:


http://money.cnn.com/2010/03/19/tech...dex.htm?hpt=T2

I expect them to eventually be bought for certain IP, but it will be very, very cheaply. Although potential suitors may wait, hoping a bankruptcy occurs.

Re: Palm struggling to survive
 

Palm has been a purchase waiting for a buyer for a long time. Marketcap allready below 1 billion (US). Might be worthwhile investment for HTC and/or Google. Both need some oldskool mobile IP, quickly.

Re: Palm struggling to survive
 

An epic "what could have been": Palm came out with the Folio right around the time the world was waking up to the fact that there was such a thing as a netbook & they wanted it. Unfortunately, Folio was not that netbook -- it had to be tethered to a Palm smartphone to do anything interesting. So close and yet so far.

Certainly it's been apparent for several years that Palm has been struggling with direction. They were leading the pack & then they fell behind when the world transitioned from PDAs to smartphones.

It's not obvious to me why Palm would be acquired. Market share? The Web OS platform?

Re: Palm struggling to survive
 

Not acquired in toto probably, but in pieces-- mainly oriented around technical IP.

I can see a bankruptcy auction... Google and HTC salivating like buzzards over the guts... ;)

Re: Palm struggling to survive
 

The writing was on the wall.
1) Palm failed to integrate expandable memory (no Micro SD)
2) Palm failed to create a GSM device in a timely manner

failing to create a product with the above features. pushed consumers like me to either but an n900 or an Iphone 3Gs.

palm have to earn some street cred. I belie if they hang in there, solve problems 1 and 2 they can earn there way back.

Re: Palm struggling to survive
 

don't be surprised if you hear of Intel being interested,
the rumour of Nokia or Google buying them is a little old now if they really wanted Palm they would already have them, unless they are waiting for them to near enough go bust so the offers they make can't be refused.

Re: Palm struggling to survive
 

I think Palm is over the breaking point.

Re: Palm struggling to survive
 

Maybe this would be a good joint investment for nokia intel partnership to make it much more than software and go the full bang of joint hardware venture.

Re: Palm struggling to survive
 

The company lost its way many years ago after constantly changing its structure and burning through investors money.

The board of directors and senior managers have a lot to answer for.

I hate to see this but the web phone they produced was too little too late.

Palm were the innovators of PDA devices and smartphones. The people runnimg the company years ago just took the money and run.

Very sad.

Re: Palm struggling to survive
 

There is only one simple explanation for this, the Palm pre looks rubbish and the screen is too small!

Otherwise I may have bought it instead of just ignoring it.

Re: Palm struggling to survive
 

I think it would be nice if Nokia acquired their work on the cards. It would make a nice replacement for the task manager since the current one on the N900 gets tiny as you increase the number of running apps.

Re: Palm struggling to survive
 

Palm have suffered a fashion problem, namely the trend away from smaller devices to larger ones, especially the screen size and resolution. Nokia need to take heed here. Interesting that in the recent crowd sourced smart phone design the screen size is coming out at over 4 inches.

http://conversations.nokia.com/2010/...xpecting-that/

Lack of micro SD card of Pre will also rule out a lot of users.

Re: Palm struggling to survive
 

The palm pre was in my opinion the perfect "girl" phone. and they seemed to market it to girls. lots of guys went and got it for wives and fiances and what not. the prob is you could only use it on sprint. if they had a gsm version as well i think it would have sold more. it looks amazing and feels even better in your hand. for a female it's awesome

Re: Palm struggling to survive
 

Thats not a good reason to spend millions, a solution to solving the problem you describe could be done with minimizing the n900 multitasking cards to 3 wide (or 2 wide) and scrolling.

I cant see any reason for Nokia to buy Palm. I can see a reason for Intel to though.

Re: Palm struggling to survive
 

I had high hopes on webOS. I thought they really had a chance, but failure to make a GSM version was a stupod move on their part. Why force yourself into a niche when you can be amongst the Big 3.

Also, yes, we like small stuff, pre was a bit too small. Bigger screen would have been helpful

Re: Palm struggling to survive
 

They don't really have that. Only in NA, and even there it has gotten awfully low and keeps dropping.


Before Samsung's Bada and Microsoft's WM7 announcements that might have made sense. Now there's really nobody left that would need Web OS.


As Texrat said, they have some interesting PDA/handheld IP. I don't really expect anybody to buy Palm before banktruptcy. That would add lot of extra costs that would come from winding down Palm's business and sacking most of employees. Once they go bust a flock of vultures will land for a meal.

Re: Palm struggling to survive
 

Palm is dead years ago after they failed (3 times!) to deliver WiFi in time. A lot of people bought Palm m500 and subsequent devices in hope to use SD slot for WiFi connectivity.

No luck, they ignored us... people turned around... time passed and other devices started looking more good than Palm OS which was designed for very low resource device.

Now, they doesn't have anything to compete. Around 2 years ago they bought Linux company (I forget that it was - Zaurus or else) but they doesn't deliver Linux up today. So they doesn't have a fan-customer base too like Apple because nobody has interest in some unknown OS with unclear perspective.


I am speaking on my own - I own a lot of Palm devices (and still have 2 functioning) and I spent thousands $$ on them. But I looked for replacement LONG time, right after Palm V because I need WiFi.

I waited and waited them to do a nice communicator with Linux inside... no. They tried to get share of cell-phone market but without bright features they played only in 2nd level on that market - Nokia,Moto and other big phone makers doesn't want new players, of course.

And I was surprised then I saw Nokia Linux-based communicator (N7XX-N8XX) on market but Palm still doesn't have it. Instead of it they turned to WinMo... and that was a slide down.


Company managers are definitely not... brilliant.

Re: Palm struggling to survive
 

ha ha, i love to see greedy rich investors lose money!
especially o2 for making me leave them after 6years for not stocking the n97 and then n900
viva la vodafone!
a company with balls!

Re: Palm struggling to survive
 

There are plenty of poor investors losing money, too.

Re: Palm struggling to survive
 

na mate, if theyve got any spare cash available to invest then there rich in my opinion, when i get paid and pay my bills ive got nowt left to invest!

Re: Palm struggling to survive
 

Some of us put what little we can into retirement accounts, and it doesn't make us rich. Not even close. In fact here in the US, most of us lost our retirement thanks to the actions of the frivolous rich.

There's a connection in there to Palm's misfortunes, too.

Re: Palm struggling to survive
 

-27%,96, or what bloody day at stockmarket looks like.
http://media.share.ovi.com/m1/s/1868...f5f0d7742f.jpg

leetut in america many of the things we europeans expect society to provide are privatized. Even relatively low income people have investments like 401k plans.

Re: Palm struggling to survive
 

It would be easier on the eyes but wouldn't it defeat the purpose of the "snapshot" effect? i mean. as it stands now, i can type one lil icon when ever i want and imediately see every single app that is running on my phone and easily switch between them as i please.

Would it be time consuming to have to scroll through multiple pages of cards to get to the application that you are looking for?

Re: Palm struggling to survive
 

Palm has one good thing going for them. the design of the pre. it has an asthetic quality unparalled save the iphone with its simplistic yet stylish design. there arent many phones out there worth looking at. palm pre and pixi are two of them, aside from those two... sheesh palm still makes cell phones?

Re: Palm struggling to survive
 

It was BeOS, which had amazing possibilities for there next device. Sadly it never bared any fruit quick enough.

Even though I wasn't gonna get one anytime soon, I was still rooting for them. Hopefully some of the employees make a startup and use meego and there base os with palm like UI..;)

x

Re: Palm struggling to survive
 

I don't know about implementing Cards as the sole task manager, but I wouldn't mind if you can toggle between maemo's task manager and Cards. Perhaps simply implemented as a toggle button in one of the free corner when task manager is called.

Re: Palm struggling to survive
 

iirc, palm was never clear about the mail program being sync with phone only, or able to operate on its own.

also, they never actually released. Instead they caved under the pressure of a questioning press (especially engadget was leaning on them). Yet the same press went crazy over the asus eeepc when it was released, when it was basically the same product, except it used a x86 cpu rather then a arm cpu.

Re: Palm struggling to survive
 

at the time, palm was two companies, mainly to avoid issues with antitrust as they where licensing the os to third parties while also selling devices using said os.

problem was that the os company came up with cobalt, but as garnet had the market time it had, noone wanted to jump to cobalt as it had no way to run the existing software library.

Re: Palm struggling to survive
 

Reading this new Palm CEO interview made even more sure that Palm is a dead man walking.

Might be because the interview is for american media, but he seems to see all troubles related to network provider support. Trying to import the american carrier focused model outside USA has been one of Palm's biggest mistakes, and it seems that the guy in charge still don't get it. It has barely worked for Apple, and I think Nokia woud in much bigger trouble if Steve could think outside the american box. Palm simply doesn't have the brand strenght to pull that trick off, not even as far as Apple has managed. It's not even close. Somebody tell him that USA is only 20% of total smartphone market. Palm RIP.

On the positive side for Palm stockholders; rumours about HTC/ASUS/random taiwanese corporation buying Palm have caused 20%+ boost to stock price.

Re: Palm struggling to survive
 

Palm pre just had a pretty UI from what I played with and sub 3.5" screen. It wasn't really denting the blackberry or iphone fortes. None of the rumoured successors have come out and they are even smaller. Just my two cents.

Re: Palm struggling to survive
 

Palm have put themselves up for sale and is looking for early bids.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63B0IM20100412

i'll donate a few quid to the pot

Re: Palm struggling to survive
 

Anyone surprised?

Re: Palm struggling to survive
 

Let's open a betting pool on who the buyer will be :)

Re: Palm struggling to survive
 

5 euro-cent bet on ZTE.

Re: Palm struggling to survive
 

It's sad.

Palm started off innovating the PDA market (they were the PDA market years ago) now just another device maker no innovation whatsoever and another typical ******ed "management team" (how may times can you transplant a new brain into frankenstein's monster before you realise the whole thing is dead?!) running the company into the ground.

The Pre was their last chance to get it right - they nearly did it.

This company has had more "last gasps" then SCO!

Let the company die - it's the humane thing to do.

Re: Palm struggling to survive
 

Palm have great software, need a bit of help on the hardware front. Nokia is almost the opposite of that, but have too much invested in Symbian anyway to consider a purchase. HTC must be in with a shout, but I'd like them to continue focussing on their Android hardware. Whoever buys them will get a huge amount of patents and expertise, it certainly will be a valuable acquisition to someone.

Re: Palm struggling to survive
 

winmo and palm died because of the stupid people behind it. for years, all you see is the same thing with very slow growth. they were very contented that they're the only 2 smartphone os and didn't expect symbian to gain ground fast. it was too late to regain themselves when iphone came out and the finishing blow from android. it's all over for them...

it's good for microsoft that they're richer than palm so they can try to rise from the ashes again longer than palm...

Re: Palm struggling to survive
 

Palm allready in talks with the chinese mobile giants.

"Huawei and ZTE are potential buyers. It makes sense: they don't have an operating system or a brand, but they have cheap manufacturing costs and money to invest and develop the brand," said IDC analyst Francisco Jeronimo in London. "Consumers don't associate Chinese brands with quality products and don't pay a premium for such a mobile phone ... Palm would be perfect for them."

Huawei and ZTE are two of China's biggest success stories, banking on demand from a strong domestic market and growing success overseas, where they compete with the likes of Ericsson (ERICb.ST) and Nokia Siemens Networks [NOKI.UL].

Re: Palm struggling to survive
 

Their hardware is as good as the N900. In fact, it is better (it has more RAM).

The only reason they died is because they needed/wanted a shitload of money (because of previous continual failures and stupid decisions) and didn't get it with this iteration.

Re: Palm struggling to survive
 

Palm has been losing direction (and good people) for years, til the last effort to re-jumpstart the whole thing again (Elevation partners, rubinstein, etc). Too little, too late I guess. Creepy ads didn't help.

ZTE pair-up seems to be a match made in heaven. ZTE is a gargantuan network company with a ****load of mobile phones running who-knows-what OS...

The only remaining question is if they can stomach Palm's asking price...