“With revenue falling to dire levels, Palm may need a Christmas miracle to stay afloat next year,” Tom Krazit reports for CNET.
“The latest dose of bad news? Revenue for Palm’s second fiscal quarter, which ended last week, will be just $190 million to $195 million, the company announced Monday ahead of its December 18th conference call,” Krazit reports. “Wall Street analysts had been expecting Palm to record $331 million in revenue, an astonishing 41 percent gap caused by ‘reduced demand for maturing smartphone and handheld products,’ Palm said in a press release.”
MacDailyNews Take: Hey, Palm, try the Antiques Roadshow.
Krazit continues, “Last week Palm revealed plans to cut workers and refocus its business as it copes with a poor economy and strong competition from the likes of Apple… Palm’s Treos were once very popular, but they have looked positively ancient against the iPhone.”
“The company’s fortunes will be determined by a race against time: if Palm can get products using its Nova operating system–which scheduled to arrive in the first half of 2009–out in the market before sales of Treos dwindle to zero, it has a chance to regain its perch atop the mobile computing world,” Krazit reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Poor Tommy Krazit’s lost his mind if he really thinks Palm has any chance whatsoever — including a “Christmas miracle” — to “regain its perch atop the mobile computing world.”
Palm is dead.
“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.” – Ed Colligan, Palm CEO, November 16, 2006
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “bc,” a self-described “former long-time Palm & Treo user / now much happier iPhone owner,” for the heads up.]
Gotta love those clueless, big talkin’ CEOs like Colligan that got to where they are through politicking (i.e., most CEOs). I bet graphing Apple’s increasing smart phone market share against Palm’s decreasing market share the last 18 months would be a cute image.
Go Apple!
I really want to see what Nova brings, so I hope Palm makes it.
The only way Palm stands a chance is if Nova OS leapfrogs the iPhone’s OS X. Good luck with that, Palm.
I was strapped with a Palm 700P Treo brick for two years… TWO YEARS of my life I will never get back. WOW how I hated that thing. What a complete piece of JUNK! It had all the great features but none of them really worked in practice. After about 6 months I terminated my data plan and for the next year and a half I just used it as a phone. What a waste of $$$.
Never under estimate the ability of your competitors. When you rest on your laurels is when you get knocked off your pedestal, especially in the technology field. I’d like to see Palm survive, but it may take a Xmas miracle for that to happen. That miracle would be along the same lines as a virgin birth.
Calling the Treo a piece of junk is absolutely ridiculous. The Treo is a wonderful device, and there are a TON of things that the Treo can do that the iPhone DOESN’T DO!!
#1. The Treo can SYNCHRONIZE NOTES BIDIRECTIONALLY BETWEEN ITSELF AND YOUR MAC! Right there is the dealbreaker for ever thinking about getting an iPhone if you’re a real business user who actually depends on having your notes with you at all times, you need a Treo or a Blackberry. Let’s see — the last time I checked, the iPhone synced its notes with … um, NOTHING! The notes on the iPhone are a worthless application. And there are no other 3rd-party notes apps for the iPhone that do bidrectional syncing.
#2. The Treo can cut, copy, and paste… and very easily, too. We personally use this feature HUNDREDS UPON HUNDREDS OF TIMES per day.
#3. The Treo has FileMaker Mobile, which syncs to FileMaker on the Mac. Until Apple opens up true native syncing ability for 3rd-party apps, we may never see this.
#4. The Treo has Pocket Quicken, which syncs to FileMaker on the Mac. Until Apple opens up true native syncing ability for 3rd-party apps, we may never see this.
#5. The Treo has MMS.
#6. The Treo can synchronize your SUBSCRIBED CALENDARS, such as US Holidays. Um, hello, iPhone?!
#7. The Treo can read, write, and edit Microsoft Word & Excel documents!
#8. The Treo has a very powerful email application built in, along with many great 3rd-party email applications such as SnapperMail. These programs let you have — amongst other things — multiple account-based signatures (instead of iPhone’s measly one signature for ALL accounts), a unified inbox for multiple accounts, and much more.
#9. The Treo, upon syncing your calendars, ACTUALLY REMEMBERS THE COLOR THAT YOU USE FOR EACH CATEGORY. The iPhone does NOT remember the color — it assigns an arbitrary color to your iPhone. Sorry, but this is completely unacceptable.
#10. The Treo has a real keyboard. Sorry, but it’s much easier & faster to type on a real keyboard than a virtual keyboard. I was clocked at 71 wpm on my Treo keyboard. Can’t type that fast on an iPhone.
#11. Not tied down to AT&T;. The Treo is available on Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile, in addition to AT&T;. Your choice of carrier. Sprint is $99 per month for unlimited everything — AT&T;is waaaay more expensive. Sprint and Verizon have better coverage across the US, and way less dropped calls.
#12. You can unlock your GSM-based Treo and pop in a 3rd-party SIM card.
Shall I go on?
The Treo is a trud. Nuff said.
@macbill
Yes, the Treo has a great list of features, but are they well implemented? My experience with Palm has always been that it technically COULD do something, but it was always in a clunky, work-around sort of way. Comparing feature sets isn’t always the best way to look at something if features that exist are useless or clunky. iPhone doesn’t do everything, but what it does do, it does well. Gradually, I think software updates and new apps will fill the gaps you refer to and these will generally be much better implementations than what Palm has. I loved my Palm back in 2000, but seriously, besides adding a phone, doesn’t the Treo basically look just like my m125?
@Bill Moseley:
By the way, I had a typo in my #4 above. I meant that the Treo has Pocket Quicken, which syncs to Quicken on the Mac (not FileMaker).
I know what you’re saying about the Treo seeming like it’s not well-integrated or well-thought-out, because I’ve seen *MANY* people who once struggled with the Treo who are now rejoicing with their iPhones.
However, if you are even the least bit technically minded (like many of the people who read this site), the Treo does not take a long time to master. I personally find it incredibly intuitive and it makes a lot of sense to me. I find it significantly easier to navigate and get business work done on the Treo than on the iPhone. (Heck, I can’t even DO a lot of my business work on the iPhone, as I mentioned above).
But I think the problem is that most consumers have like a 2-second attention span and need the oversimplified interface of the iPhone. Most consumers don’t even know how to drop down a menu on the Treo, even though it only takes a moment to figure out.
I think what I’m trying to say is this: The iPhone is a great & fun device, but it’s NOT a full-blown PDA. I hope it will be someday… when it is, I will purchase one. But until then, I have to stick with my Treo. I don’t have a choice! I need notes syncing, Pocket Quicken, and FileMaker Mobile!
I had a Treo 180 and a Treo 600, and the quality leap to the iPhone is enormous (I didn’t bother with the Treo 700, based on reviews).
Yes, it COULD do everything, but I couldn’t get most of it to work. The memory limitation was so bad, I couldn’t even update the OS. The web browser was so bad as to be unusable. The phone was nice and the email was workable. But the rest?
Didn’t do it for me…
Laundry list of features aren’t always helpful if they are one sided.
Some people like to boast features on other phones that iPhone doesn’t have, yet the same people don’t list the features that are unique to the iPhone that are missing on the other phones.
I can name a lot of things that I enjoy tremendously on my iPhone, but I won’t offer up a feature list here. If you don’t know by now, you’re missing out, besides, just what the App Stores alone brings to the table will be too many to mention. Many who read here have iPhones. And many of them who read your feature list on their iPhone’s Safari probably just said, “uh-huh, great. Really, good for you.”
Seriously, I feel bad for Palm. I am an engineer, and I am biased towards almost all tech firms and want them to weather this economic storm that they didn’t cause. Greedy banks, realtors and war mongers would be the first few, probably, if I have to create a list on that. I hope Palm survives this, it appears they cater to a different group of people as is evidenced by your list. Frankly, if I needed that much typing and computing on my mobile, I’d get a netbook at this point. Or maybe Apple will offer a slightly larger than iPhone iProSomethingMultiTouchTablet to fill the gap and trounce everyone. Apple is awakening a platform after all, and you don’t offer just one product for a platform to be powerful.
Yeah, go ahead, cut and paste that.
Maybe Palm can fly to Washington and ask Congress for some help.
Word of advice, fly coach.
“if Palm can get products using its Nova operating system . . . out in the market before sales of Treos dwindle to zero, it has a chance to regain its perch atop the mobile computing world”
Rushing a product before it is ready is bad advice and can only make things worse. Ship it when it is ready. If it is good it will sell.
If Nova isn’t good even with time, then Palm is dead.
RIM can afford a Storm, Palm can’t.
I don’t have a choice. I live in a state where AT&T;does not do business. I hope Palm stays alive at least until the iPhone comes to South Dakota.
Like it or not Palm users are deserting in droves and aren’t doing that simply on a whim. If those users were so happy with the feature set on offer and indeed above everything else the phone can/cannot do, then that simply would not be the case. I think people who are tech savvy enough to wade through usability issues with a boost to their ego can’t see the fuss, but those of us who want technology to be easily accessible to all and who will always be the bulk of the buyers for consumer products will always put usability of the functions we most need over the shear list of functions alone. Having gone down that latter road too often with poorly designed Japanese electronics I now know which option I would choose every time.
i wonder what the investors are doing? i’d quickly snatch my money back while there’s still some left. Those who ‘ride it out’ are riding a tsunami into a mountainside. Usually about now, the ‘suits’ start taking what they can from the sinking ship, and creditors the rest.
“The only way Palm stands a chance is if Nova OS leapfrogs the iPhone’s OS X. Good luck with that, Palm.”
I’ve read the possibly apocryphal story that the Chevy Nova would not sell in Spanish-speaking countries because “no va” means “it does not go.”
The “Nova”/”no va” story is a myth. Spanish speakers aren’t that stupid.
——RM
I think Apple is squandering it’s lead with the iPhone. Some very very curious decisions that IMHO are holding this thing back from truly pulverizing the competition:
True Sync
Link to AT&T;(Why the heck do this?????)
Cut and paste!!!
Seems like if Apple was really really listening to it’s customers these items wouldn’t be still hanging around almost 2 YEARS after the release. 2 Years is a long in tech time.
Palm made my first PDA and it was a good one! It is a shame to see what this company has become, but the marketplace dictates who will succeed and who won’t.
Say what you will, there’s still no program like Vindigo on the iPhone, whereas it worked great on my Palm, for years.
And no, Yelp is not nearly as good.
I’d really like to see Palm survive and even thrive with some great products. They used to “get it”, and Apple badly needs the competition. Sadly I think the chances of that are slim.
If the iPhone had not come along I would eventually have gotten a Treo, though a Blackberry would also have been tempting. I still have an old Handspring and an old Palm around here somewhere. Now I’ll be staying with iPhones, and my wife will, unless Apple really drops the ball.
I have the iPhone, and the one HARD requirement I have is the use of Pocket Quicken and synching with Quicken on my Mac.
It kind of pisses me off that Apple/Intuit has not allowed this to happen.
The reason I went to the iPhone was more of a PDA problem with Palm: The last Palm I had was a Tungsten C, and it broke 13 months into its life. I paid Palm $125 to get a refurbished model which lasted only 7 months.
As much as I like my iPhone, and I like it a lot, I really miss Pocket Quicken!!!
My 2 cents.
****The “Nova”/”no va” story is a myth. Spanish speakers aren’t that stupid.****
Sorry, but yes they really are that stupid.
I was a long time Palm user but never owned a Treo. My wife had a Treo and we both hated it. I would have been all over a Treo made like a Clie TH55.
Even with my Palm nostalgia, I’ll never purchase another but I do hate to see them go out of business. They were once a great company but they rested when they should have been innovating. To this day, they haven’t produced a PDA that matched Sony’s Clie and there’s no way they can keep up with Apple.