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What Happened To Palm?
Ian Lamont writes "Palm's fourth quarter results came out a few days ago, and they were not pretty: Palm reported losses of 40 cents per share, for a quarterly loss of $43.4 million. It's the fourth straight quarter of losses, and it's clear that the company is not faring well in the rapidly evolving smartphone market. The Treo line is lagging after seven years, and while the Centro has done well, it's not well enough to compete with the likes of the iPhone 3G and RIM's surging BlackBerry line. New competition is on the horizon, with developers and manufacturers working on the Google Android platform and the recent news that Symbian is being open-sourced. What happened to Palm? What can the company do to effectively compete in the mobile market, and turn its fortunes around?"
Palm OS was brilliant at running PDA-style apps. However, that's not the direction portable computing was going, and Palm never did much to address the future. When every other platform was moving into media, Palm was proud of its third-party support calendars with more buttons.
And don't get me started about the Graffiti 2 debacle ("Easy to learn, even if you'll never get faster!"). Instead of working out a deal to keep using Jot and its trickier-but-faster strokes, they switched to that two-stroke abomination that instantly cut power users' data entry speed in half. Way to save a penny, Palm!
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
The reason I think RIM will linger and then die is that they don't have the economic resources to compete with the iphone. They'll linger because they are damn good at what they do do. Bussinesses like them for the present better than iphones. the iphone killer app has yet to be written. And then there's the exclusive carrier contracts. But over time they won't beable to keep up with the application dev and versatility of the iphone.
Nokia has the cash flow to try and fail four or five times from scratch against the iphone. They have the engineering chops to compete on performance. And if their first few attempts fail, the worst that happens is they lose the high end phone market till they come up with something to rival the iphone.
Android the ability to compete with the iphone on apps and speed of software innovation. It can be backed by the google cloud and that may possibly turnout to be better than the apple cloud (though apple would just switch over if that were the case, but it would erase an apple exclusive advantage).
Android + samsung can produce both awseome hardware and software at affordable prices and with substantial cash flow to back it till it catches on.
But Apple still has a killer advantage: OSX and platform integration. OSX means people can write Hub apps for the apple desktops and then have companion mobile apps for the iphone. You won't have to re-write your code or support two platforms. Or have compatibility libs. Heck you won't even have to have two IDEs: Xcode does it all. So both from the developer and consumer point of view apple is much more fascile and seamless.
Apple recently bought a low power chip maker so the horse power and battery lifr in these is going to keep getting better. Since apple will always be able to more tightly couple the OS and hardware, they are going to get every drop of power out of this thing. It used to be that it was the communication hardware that ate the batteries. Presumably nokia's better at that but with the new generation it's the computing and screen display power. Things like background service will eat your battery. Apple thus may have the better hardware strategy as well as the better software strategy.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I've owned Palm gear since .. oh around the time the original palm3x came out. Bought it from CompUSA - loved that device for about a year.
Got a good lead on a VX - and scored one. Very awesome; although the lack of being able to use aaa batteries was somewhat dissapointing, it seemed to hold a good charge. Even up until a year ago when I got rid of the unit.
Did everything with this machine. GPS, kept my contacts, even had about 15 minutes every morning where I would manually sync my business calendar with the one in the Palm to stay on top of things. Truly this machine was the best PDA I've ever had.
Fast forward to .. oh 3 years ago? When the T|X came out, told my wife that I wanted one for Christmas. And I got it! Played with that thing for about a month, using it to watch videos at the gym and playing music at work. For data entry and screen visibility, this device was awesome.
My gripes?
1. The audio out on the device is noisy with low impedance headphones. This drives my tinnitus up the wall. Constant "hisssssssssss" regardless of the volume level. This is either a product of cramming an audio amp next to the screen or just a crappy amp.
2. Screen squeal. No lie, this thing emits a vile, harsh sound from the screen anytime that it is on. It's not that noticable, but again - I have slight tinnitus in my left ear, and it makes my left ear go absolutely nuts. I believe it is in the same sound spectrum as a TV flyback - because they both do this to me. Anyways, 2 RMAs later, and they state that this problem is expected with this kind of display technology and they're not going to fix it. This seems to affect every one of their devices - go into your local staples/office max/whatever and find their Palm section (if they still have one.) If you turn them on, you're guaranteed to hear the squeal - my wife was giving me shit for not using my gift she got me, and I then walked her by the Palm section. She didn't berate me any more after that.
3. Had to RMA for failing power button. This happened about 2 months into the device, and really drove me nuts. This exact same issue happened with my Palm Vx late in life. They did fix this properly, and to this day the power button works.
I no longer use the device and it sits on my shelf due to the screen squeal. I also bought an MP3 player that plays videos (granted, on a much smaller screen) so I no longer need this one at the gym. It also doesn't accept SDHC cards (DOH!!!)
Now, my thoughts as to why they're doing bad in the market:
1. They don't fix clearly obvious issues with the device (#1 and #2 above)
2. My work laptop now has wireless access every place that I go in my company. This gives my laptop the ability to be my "pda" even though it isn't as convenient.
3. With #2 being true for a lot of people, there's just no market for a small portable repository of address books and calendars for the masses. Note - there are probably some niche areas where a PDA comes in handy, but in my line of work (Network/Voice Design) I just don't have a need.
4. Same as above, I still see a PDA and a phone combo as a niche device. Blackberry and Apple are getting this area right - by integrating with popular mail types (Exchange, Lotus Notes) that companies use to keep their employees abreast of things. I'm not sure how Palm still does this, but back in the day it was some convoluted connector that runs on your local PC. Not too handy if the laptop is sitting in the off position in your laptop bag.
Karnal
This was a letter from Engadget to Palm back in 2007, it left an impression on me after I read it. I think most of it still applies today.
Dear Palm,
Man, what a crazy year, right? We know things haven't really been going your way lately, but we want you to know that we haven't given up on you, even though it might seem like the only smartphone anyone wants to talk about these days is the iPhone. It can be hard to remember right now, but you used to be a company we looked to for innovation. You guys got handhelds right when everyone else, including Apple, was struggling to figure it out. And it was the little things that made those early Palm Pilots great -- you could tell that someone had gone to a lot of trouble to think about what made for a great mobile experience, like how many (or rather, few) steps it took to perform common tasks.
The problem is that lately we haven't seen anything too impressive out of you guys. Sure, over the past few years the Treo has emerged as a cornerstone of the smartphone market, but you've let the platform stagnate while nearly everyone (especially Microsoft and HTC, Symbian and Nokia, RIM, and Apple) has steadily improved their offerings. So we've thrown together a few ideas for how Palm can get back in the game and (hopefully) come out with a phone that people can care about. (And we're not talking about the Centro / Gandolf.) Read on.
So yeah, it was probably a smart move to recognize that you needed to offer a Windows Mobile version of the Treo to appeal to enterprise users, but there are literally millions and millions of consumers who want a high-end, powerful mobile computer that isn't built around Exchange server support. What they're looking for is a great user experience. Apple has done a good job tapping into that market, but there's still a huge opportunity out there for Palm to offer a smartphone that's just as engaging as the iPhone, but that's also open, rather than closed, and more geared towards productivity.
Frankly, you've taken a turn from being the respected underdog and innovator to repeat offender in stale gear. Every press release you issue or "leaked" photo we see these days is another dent in your already banged up armor, and really, we're not sure how much more we can take -- our loyalty has practically become an embarrassment among peers. The New York Times totally nailed it when they said "Palm is about to release a new model in its Treo line and photos leak out to silence." That said, we humbly submit a few (mainly practical) suggestions for how you can turn things around, organized by hardware, software, and other.
Hardware
Get thin - Three words: FIGURE IT OUT. If HTC, Apple, and Motorola can offer thin (and we mean friggin' thin) smartphones, you can too. We know you think the Treo is perfectly proportioned, but it's not. It's chubby. No excuses any more, ok? It doesn't have to be as thin as the iPhone, but you've gotta trim some of the fat.
Bigger, higher resolution displays - Make the screen bigger and up the resolution and you'll go a long way towards winning us back. There's no reason the 750 shouldn't have 320 x 320 (or higher) -- Windows Mobile 6 supports that, or didn't you hear? But for new devices you might want to have the keyboard slide out, like with the HTC Hermes or the Samsung i730. It's a really smart move. The long and short of it is this: if you can find some way to marry the expanse of something like the iPhone's or G900's massive, high res screens and still retain the spirit of the Palm keyboard, people will be very interested.
Speaking of the keyboard, don't mess too much with it - Apple may or not add a physical keyboard to the iPhone (our money says it won't happen), but the one the Treo has now is pretty good and it's pretty much the one thing that's keeping a lot of Treo owners from jumping ship. And from what we hear, the Centro is going to have a keyboard that's "impossible to type on" -- not
The dropped the scroll wheel on the side that made the old blackberries have such a (in my mind) LEGENDARY interface. Honestly that was one of the best interfaces i have EVER used. They dropped it for a stupid trackball that, while pretty, is all but useless unless you use two hands to operate the phone.
I liked my 7520 too, and I agree with your comments about key size, etc. But I'm surprised by your comments about the trackball. I was more than ready to hate the trackball when I got my 8830, but surprise, I liked it more than the scroll wheel. It balances better in my hand, as the point of balance is centred on the trackball, rather than over to the right as it was with the scroll wheel.
I'm not very confident about the durability of the trackball, though. I've had it stop tracking in one or more directions twice. Turns out that a little spit and rotation gets the grit in the trackball out of the way, and you're good to go again. I suspect that over time this will become a bigger problem, as grit seems to get into the mechanism easily, and there is no complete way to clean it (remember that mouseballs used to have this problem, but you could take them apart and give them a through cleaning, which you can't with the 8830 trackball).
Your comment about the screen recessing on the 7520 points to an issue with the 8830 - the screen is *not* recessed, and mine was getting pretty scuffed up after four months use.
I had my first 8830 replaced under warranty after the keyboard went berserk. Keys started to fail, and then start working again, while other keys started to fail at the same time. It was like the problem was circulating through my keyboard; it did make life exciting though, as you found out what keys weren't working on a particular day. The biggest problem was when the Alt key and Del key weren't working at the same time. My PIN had numbers in it, which made it impossible to unlock.
Overall, I don't think that the 8830 has the durability of the 7520, and even though I do like the trackball, I don't think it is going to last in service. I never had any issue with the scroll wheel.
[17] Leary, T., White, C., Wood, P. R., Bhabha, W. D., and Wirth, N. Lambda calculus considered harmful. In Proceedings
wasted millions of dollars developing a questionable gadget that no one asked for--the Foleo
I might have bought a Foleo but now I have an eeePC, which was a huge hit for Asus. Some of the specifics like the tie in to the Treo were a bad idea, but the hardware platform might have taken off if they had persisted with it.
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