“Palm Inc. saw its share plunge to a new low Friday morning after the maker of smartphone wireless devices warned that a shipping delay and “unforeseen” warranty repairs would cause a shortfall for its latest quarter,” Dan Gallagher reports for MarketWatch.
“Analysts, already cool towards Palm, noted that the warning shows that the company is still gripped by operational problems as it attempts to turn around its slowing business in the face of growing competition from the likes of Research in Motion and Apple Inc.,” Gallagher reports. “The stock, which already shed more than 35% since closing a recapitalization deal in late October, gave up nearly 18% to trade at $5.41 in early hours.”
“The company’s flagship Treo, which largely established the market for smartphones, has seen its share eroded by the BlackBerry line from Research in Motion. A fresh line of attack has come from Apple with its popular iPhone,” Gallagher reports. “In September, the company pulled the plug on the Foleo, a laptop-like device that was roundly criticized after it was introduced only three months after the product was announced.”
“Earlier this year, Palm landed a recapitalization deal with private equity firm Elevation Partners. As part of the deal, Elevation installed former Apple executive Jon Rubinstein to the post of executive chairman,” Gallagher reports.
Full article here.
We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone. PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in. – Palm CEO Ed Colligan, Nov. 16, 2006
Related articles:
Beleaguered Palm’s fading lifeline – October 18, 2007
Beleaguered Palm posts $841,000 loss as Treo sales lag behind Apple iPhone – October 01, 2007
Palm shareholders agree to partial takeover, ex-Apple execs Rubinstein, Anderson involved – September 12, 2007
Deathwatch begins for beleaguered Palm – September 10, 2007
Apple’s iPhone has blood on its multi-touch screen: Palm kills Foleo on eve of launch – September 04, 2007
Former Apple execs Rubinstein and Anderson join Palm’s board – June 04, 2007
Apple Board Members: We will not enter into a public debate with Fred Anderson or his lawyer – April 26, 2007
JMP Securities: Former Apple CFO Anderson likely lacks proof – April 25, 2007
Former Apple CFO Fred Anderson take parting shots at Apple CEO Steve Jobs – April 25, 2007
Former Apple CFO Anderson blames Steve Jobs in options backdating brouhaha – April 24, 2007
Apple’s former CFO Anderson settles with SEC in alleged stock-option backdating investigation – April 23, 2007
SEC closes in on ex-Apple lawyer Heinen, mulls lawsuit against former CFO Anderson – April 23, 2007
Apple retains ex-iPod VP Rubinstein as consultant – April 23, 2006
Tim Cook named COO of Apple, Jon Rubinstein to retire March 31 and be succeeded by Tony Fadell – October 14, 2005
Deathwatch begins for beleaguered Palm – September 10, 2007
Apple sells one million iPhones in 74 days – September 10, 2007
Apple’s iPhone has blood on its multi-touch screen: Palm kills Foleo on eve of launch – September 04, 2007
Apple iPhone outsells all so-called ‘smartphones’ in U.S. in July – September 04, 2007
Apple iPhone fallout: Palm scrambles to develop new PalmOS based on Linux kernel – April 11, 2007
Analyst: Apple’s iPhone has Palm ‘shaking in their sandals’’ – March 09, 2007
Palm hires former Apple engineer in attempt to respond to iPhone – March 09, 2007
Palm hires Morgan Stanley to explore sale – March 05, 2007
The once-mighty Palm Inc. doomed to decline and failure – thanks to Apple’s iPhone – February 23, 2007
Analysts: time is right for Palm sale – February 20, 2007
Palm CEO can’t stop talking about Apple iPhone – February 19, 2007
Apple ‘iPhone’ could cause Nokia, Palm, Motorola, and RIM to really start to sweat – December 07, 2006
Palm CEO laughs off Apple ‘iPhone’ threat – November 20, 2006
Time and time again, someone comes along and poaches your sweat equity, dumps the bad, delivers the good, leaving you to ask, “What the hell happened?”
How does it feel Ed?
“PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.”
Open the door, get on the floor, everyone walk “ON” the dinosaur (Palm)!
I love the smell of eating crow in the morning!
MDN,
keep up the good work of finding past quotes from the idiots who are supposed to understand the markets in which they operate and those who are supposed to understand the markets period! (eg. Laura Goldman)
There’s an old saying in business:
“If you don’t make your product obsolete, someone else will do it for you.”
Treo…the world’s stupidest Smartphone.
When iPhone comes to Canada, my Treo will have a ‘Close-up du mur”
That is Frenglish or Franglais for ‘bashing it against the wall…..’
“We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone. PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in. – Palm CEO Ed Colligan, Nov. 16, 2006”
hahaha… thats hilarious.
@ Buster
iPhone is in Canada, albeit not officially. Half the crew were sporting iPhones when I was on a film shoot in Montreal. The same goes for Toronto.
Back on Topic:
The Treo (first the 600 and then the 650) was a great transition for me when I switched from having 2 devices (Palm Pilot and mobile) to an all-in-one device. Back then there was nothing that offered the option of PDA and phone in one. Unfortunately, they never really evolved from the original design, and I gave up my Treo long before iPhone came along. Now that I’m using the iPhone, I won’t look at a Palm device ever again.
Congratulations go to Steve Jobs for being inducted into the California Hall of Fame.
Palm rose and now is falling.
Gotta love the way that sounds.
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Palm doesn’t look too rosy anymore.
Buster,
Your choice of the Palm Treo demonstrates you clearly appreciate good design and an excellent user interface—something most MAC lemmings have no idea about. Are you sure you aren’t pounding out such witty comments and brilliant insight on a Dell running Vista? Maybe next time I’m up there in America Jr. we can squirt songs between our Zunes.
The best part is you aren’t ashamed to admit you actually want one of those expensive wannabe real smartphone I-Phones. How smart is an I-Phone if it can’t connect to an Exchange server and it only has one button? Sounds like a simpletonphone to me. Perfect for MAC dorks.
Your potential. Our passion.™
This is what happens to a company that stops supporting the Mac. Once a company makes an executive decision to stop supporting the Mac, the entire company starts failing after that.
If the iPhone would support my medical software that I need I would switch in a second. My treo blows. It freezes up, it’s slow and it’s bulky.
Zune Tang! You are out! Amazing.
The Treo might be good if they radically changed the software. The web browsing experience sucks. Really sucks.
But if anyone uses an iPhone, then goes back to their Treo, the Treo seems like a piece of the 80s. The iPhone seems cutting edge.
.
As part of the deal, Elevation installed former Apple executive Jon Rubinstein to the post of executive chairman,” Gallagher reports.
.
Smells of a backroom Apple deal to me. Most likely to grab some patents or something.
.
It’s too bad about Palm. They did a decent job supporting the Mac platform in the past, but have pretty much forgotten about it in recent years. As much as folks bash the Treo family, it was pretty innovative when first released. The only other options were Windows-mobile based phones.
Personally, I hope they can turn things around. There’s nothing like competition to keep markets thriving, and I hope that Palm can develop products that will compete well with the iPhone and other “smartphones”.
The Palm OS has a few advantages in that the platform is open to other developers already (which won’t be an advantage after next February) and has more capability in available software (hopefully changing after next February).
There are still plenty of things that you can do on a Palm device that you can’t (without voiding a warranty) on an iPhone:
-instant messaging (AOL, Yahoo Chat, MSN, etc.)
-handle ToDo’s
-view, edit & create Word & Excel files (not just view attachments to email)
-sync notes between phone & computer
-record voice memos
-telnet & ssh clients
-a real calculator, not just add/subtract/multiply/divide
-a unit converter
-ability to add ringtones (without having to buy them from iTMS or the carrier)
-games (local, instead of only available online)
What the iPhone can do that no one else can is:
-multi-touch interface
-buy music from iTMS
-visual voicemail
-a way better web browser than others
Yeah, Old Zune Tang likes to squirt stuff between people.
“Yeah, Old Zune Tang likes to squirt stuff between people.”
But I’ll bet it’s a hassle for him to have to re-register his residence with the state every time he moves.
I like how Zune Tang — whether he’s the original one or not — has adopted two fairly new elements in his Wintroll-parody arsenal: the confusion of self-proclaimed techies between the acronym for Media Access Control and the abbreviation for the Macintosh; and also the convoluted renaming of Apple products (I-Phone, Ipod) from people whose sharply refined tastes simply cannot abide alternative capitalization. Although I can see the point of those who claim his shtick has grown tiresome, I say keep squirting the “truth”, ZT! (Squirt it with your squircle, of course.)
My Treo 700p will be my last Palm PDA.
Palm will be analyzed in business schools for years as a study in how to have the world on a string, and then let go, and fall in an open pit latrine.
The Palm stylus based interface was/is brilliant, and a phone using the stylus interface would be infinitely better than a stupid toy keyboard. So what did Palm do? They created a neither fish no fowl by trashed all the best parts of the stylus interface without fully embracing the toy keyboard interface. Then they buried things miles deep in non-intuitive menu structures, and created an operating system on the Treo (with a modern, fast, risc processor) that is much slower on many functions that my old 68K based Palm was.
Idiots. They deserve everything they are not getting.
Come on iPhone in Canada.
I’m still using my Palm T5 with a Nokia, the small screen on the treo doesn’t cut it. I need to be able to read the gps maps while I’m driving and scroll to different parts of the city easily. I also need to be able to write in new appointments and copy and paste those addresses to mapping and memos. Where is this functionality Apple, please turn the iPhone into a true PDA.
Come on Steve! The world’s largest continent is waiting for the iPhone!
(That’s Asia for those who “forgot” your Geography)
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