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Thu, Jul 17, 2008 13:57 EDT

Palm in 2008: Hanging by a Thread or Back from the Dead?

Topic: Infrastructure

Blog: Mobile WorkHorse

Current Rating: 5 Comments: 3

Remember Palm and its Treo smartphones? Barely, you say? Yeah, me too. But thanks to an entry-level smartphone called the Centro and a couple of new high-end Treo devices, the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based handheld maker just might find its way back onto your radar in 2008.

image of Red Sprint Palm Centro
The Palm Centro

It has been a while since I focused on Palm in this blog. In fact, it was last fall, when I suggested that the once industry-leading handset-producer may have lost its punch and could be headed for the great big gadget-recycling plant in the sky. But that was almost a year ago, and a lot can happen in a year's time, including the beginnings of a comeback.

Back in October a reader by the name of Rob commented on that last Palm-related post and suggested a rather simple—yet insightful—strategy for the ailing smartphone company. From the comment:

"In answer to your question of what can save Palm? One thing: great product…If they can develop great product then they will get back on track."

Well put, Rob. And it appears that Palm listened and is now on the first leg of the road to recovery.

The success of Palm's first truly consumer-oriented device, the Palm Centro, has helped it regain some lost market share and rekindled interest in its upcoming smartphone lineup. (The Treo 680 was aimed at consumers, but it was basically a Treo 750, a business device, that ran on Palm's own OS and came in a variety of colors.) Included in the new lineup are the recently announced Treo 800w and the rumored Treo 850, which unlike the entry level $99-or-less Centro, are aimed at power users who have a little more scratch to drop on a mobile device. The Treo 800w is currently available through Sprint--which was the first carrier to sell the Centro, as well—for $249.99 with a two-year service contract. And a GSM Treo 850 is also in the works, with leaked images of the purported device already bouncing around the Web.

image of the Palm Treo 800w from Sprint
The Palm Treo 800w

Palm says it shipped its one millionth Centro in late March, and it expects to hit the two million mark before the end of the year. According to CEO Ed Colligan, Palm's currently invested in growing its user base by attracting people who're making the initial switch from feature-phones to smartphones with the inexpensive Centro. Colligan and company expect 2009 to be an important year in which they'll see improved profit margins due to sales of the new Treos.

Palm is also seeing some short term U.S. market share gains, due largely to Centro sales. Though the company's fourth quarter 2007 market share (7.9 percent) was significantly lower than its Q1 2007 share (23 percent), Palm has shown some noteworthy improvement in the first quarter of 2008 (13.4 percent), according to numbers from research firm IDC.

This is not to say that the company isn't still struggling. It is. In fact, Palm recently reported fiscal year 2008 financials, and the numbers were grim. For the full fiscal year, Palm lost $110.9 million on $1.32 billion of revenue. The company's net sales dropped some 26 percent from more than $401 million at the end of last year's fourth quarter to about $296 million at the close of fourth quarter 2008. Total stockholders' equity drastically decreased from more than $1 billion last year to

You do not have flash or javascript support.
Average (3 votes)
5
 
 
Mon, Jul 21, 2008 14:01 EDT
Posted by: aquiles
Rating: 80

I was disappointed to see the newest member of the Palm family with Windows Mobile. If the iPhone had come with that same OS it would've been just another generic (ie Windows) product out there.

My dream Palm would have:

a) A body as compact as that of the Blackberry curve.
b) Palm's interface with improved speed.
c) A Mozilla-based browser with full Flash compatibility.

And more importantly,

d) A Bluetooth implementation of the DUN profile that works perfectly.

It isn't that difficult for Palm to make a perfect device. It doesn't have to do with software or hardware, it needs to take its users' habits and preferences into account.

 
Wed, Jul 23, 2008 19:44 EDT
Anonymous user
Posted by: Anonymous
Rating: 90

I was a huge Palm fan for several years, and had Palm 600/650/750 nut currently the Palm 750 I use in the UK is terrible. Windows and Palm OS whats that all about? It won't sync with either XP or Vista, and Windoes crashes regularly often stopping me making or receiving phone calls. I remove the battery and reboot at least 3 times a day. It is truly a mess of poor integration. I am about to throw it as far as I can and get a blackberry reluctantly. How Microsft can put their name to it I do not know. And to not sync when there is MS Outlook and MS XP or Vista on the laptop and active sync or windows mobile (who knows which is which) it is rubbish in my opinion.

 
Fri, Aug 1, 2008 10:01 EDT
Posted by: Al Sacco
Rating:

Well it looks like Palm was correct in predicting that it would sell 2 million Centro smartphones in 2008. Earlier this week the company issued a press release to announce that it had reached the milestone.

AS

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About this Blog

Al Sacco writes about (and drools over) anything and everything mobile or wireless as it applies to the global workforce--with a focus on BlackBerry smartphones.

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