Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Palm Reveals New Name

Posted by Hemos on from the how-bloody-unexciting dept.

dmehus writes "Milpitas, Calif. based Palm Inc. announced Sunday afternoon the new name and moniker for its handheld hardware business. After almost two years in the planning and focus group stages, the company's Board of Directors and executives decided on PalmOne. PalmOne's ticker symbol will change from the current PALM to PLMO. Sister company PalmSource, which will be the operating system business, takes ticker symbol PSRC. According this report by CNET News.com's Ina Fried, the two companies will be publicly traded, but they will also be controlled by a new holding company. In addition, the Spring 2004 line of handhelds will adopt the PalmOne moniker. Devices that run the Palm OS can continue to say "Palm powered." The new ticker symbols and corporate name changes will take affect some time in late September or early October, once the Palm buyout of rival HandSpring is complete."

11 of 306 comments (clear)

  1. What about... by swordboy · · Score: 5, Funny

    They didn't even make it fully buzzword compliant. There's no '.' in there or 'e' anywhere... What about 'flex' or 'i'?

    --

    Life is the leading cause of death in America.
  2. Stage One of Going Down the Toilet by Ravensign · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Stage One of Going Down the Toilet: Split yourself into groups of N, and give each sub-company a new name. That way no one knows who the hell they are dealing with.

    Frequently employed when a company's market share or mind share begins to slip, in an irrational attempt to reverse said slipping.

    --
    "Sig free in '03!"
    1. Re:Stage One of Going Down the Toilet by kisrael · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Charge $299 for an Palm-based product which has less than half the processing power and half the capabilities of comparable PocketPC devices, and expect people to buy it.

      Good thing they have an OS and UI that people actually enjoy using.

      Though I just bought a wonder $180 Sony SJ-22; terrific screen and the UI/OS I love. I think Sony is more of a threat to Palm hardware than the PocketPC is.

      --
      SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
  3. Is it just me... by geeber · · Score: 5, Funny

    Or is the name "PalmOne" almost an invitation to steal the thing?

    --
    Download my free songs!
  4. Palm is so leet by JohnGrahamCumming · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In the graphical form of the name (which you can view on their web site) they
    have chosen to use leetspeak in the form pa1mOne which seems to me to be a horrible mistake (it's also
    worth knowing that palmOne did not buy the sites pa1mOne.com and pa1m0ne.com: pa1mone.com seems to have be
    purchased by an employee of Palm just yesterday and does not take you to palmone.com :-)

    The real mistake though is that should we be referring to the company is palmOne or pa1mOne? It's just
    confusing for no reason. I mean you don't see Microsoft changing its name to M1cro$0ft just to look cool.

    John.

  5. The sad part is... by Capt_Troy · · Score: 5, Funny

    they probably actually paid a marketing company a million bucks to come up with that lame-ass name!

    Hell, I would have thought one up for 50 bucks. here's a freebie:

    "Shaznasta"

    T.

  6. Hm, wildly successful brand name...LET'S CHANGE IT by argStyopa · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I don't understand why companies INSIST on doing this? Is this some sort of corporate fear that their brand name is watered-down by ubiquity?

    It seems that companies who are so successful that their name BECOMES the product would be happy.

    I watched this happen to Digiboard. They were THE standard product in their line but then went & changed their name to Digi International. D'oh.

    --
    -Styopa
  7. Quick Change The Name! by ellem · · Score: 5, Funny

    PHB::According to Johnson's report I see we have market share and brand name recognition. What's our plan?

    JOHNSON::Do nothing sir.

    PHB::Do nothing? You idiot Johnson YOU'RE FIRED! Cravenstone what do you have?

    CRAVENSTONE::Let's change our name sir.

    PHB::Excel-lent....

    --
    This .sig is fake but accurate.
  8. Aww Damn! by NoData · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well, there's goes my bet on what the new Handspring, Palm merged company would be called:

    "PalmSprings" of course!

    Sure, you laugh now, but their new office digs woulda been SWEET.

  9. Everyone misunderstands the branding change by Feathers+McGraw · · Score: 5, Funny

    Everyone's reading PalmOne like it was pronounced Palm-WON, but it's really pronounced Pahl-MOH-nay, which clearly is designed to appeal to the modern, hip Euro-style elite. Ooh, la la.

  10. Glad to see.... by jayrtfm · · Score: 5, Funny

    Glad to see that the marketing group who came up with "New Coke" finally got another client.