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Handspring Delays Treo, Plans To Drop Organizer Line
backlonthethird writes: "http://www.palminfocenter.com has the scoop on Handspring's triple announcements yesterday. CEO Donna Dubinsky says they're dropping "Organizers," (i.e. visors?), and most of their new Treos are going to Europe because of a parts shortage. At least their losses this past quarter aren't as bad as people were expecting--they claim profitability by this Summer. What the heck is going on over there?"
And the funny thing is that they are being killed by a better product.
No, they're being killed by a different product. The Palm OS machines are intended to be inexpensive, practical organizers -- not undersized laptops or $500 status symbols. Palms trade things like MP3 playback and glitzy graphics for battery life, light weight, small size, and low price.
Palm OS devices are incredibly practical to someone who needs a powerful organizer for their work -- which is why medical professionals love them. For some kid that's looking for a fancier version of a Gameboy to impress the other kids, the PocketPC machines may be appealing:
Dudez, im righting this email on my iPaq and listening to a Rancid MP3! iPaqs rule! Palms are seriously gay!
The grown-ups will continue to buy Palm as long as they are available.
Handspring has just destroyed the Springboard and Visor markets with these statements. I am lead programmer for Shine Micro Shine Micro, maker of the SM2496 DSP module for the Visor, and we have been working hard to bring our product to market. Currently it is in Beta testing, but it now appears that we are going to have to redesign for a different platform, or dump the project entierly.
The quote was that the will be exiting the PDA market "but not today". That doesn't provide any kind of reassurance to any of the Springboard deleopers who have invested a great amount of time and effort into what is now a dead product line.
Yes, all product lines are finite. But you usually don't have the manufacturer announcing this fact prematurely. I don't see any reason for someone to buy a Visor or a Springboard module now that they know that the support will not be there sometime in the near future.
It sounds like Handspring is turning into a fancy cellphone company. I don't think that they will survive this move. The Visor and Springboard are a good product and would have carried them far into the future (just look at Palm).
Brian Lane
Lead Programmer
Shine Micro
Maker of the SM2496 DSP module
Remember Lexington Green!