

Palm CEO’s Letter to Employees - asnyder
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/02/25/palm-ceo%E2%80%99s-letter-to-employees/

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pedalpete
I think their ad campaign with the weird zombie women did nothing to help them
take on the iPhone or android devices. I don't think their branding was
targetted correctly.

Having said that, I've got a friend who got a pre, and he ended up giving his
iPhone to his girlfriend and can't stop raving about the pre.

They aren't out of this yet, but I think there challenge will be in
communicating and educating an audience about their products.

I don't know that the carriers are the best channel to rely on for marketing
of the devices. The carrier will offer incentives, and push devices that are
giving the carrier or reps the best business value.

I think palm needs to get customers coming into the store asking for the palm
products.

This challenge is further hampered with the number of android, blackberry and
soon to be winPhone7 devices.

The stores can have a wall of android, a kiosk of blackberry, and I suspect
will have a section dedicated to winPhone7. With only two devices that are
visually differentiated, they don't have either the recognizable presence of
an iPhone, or the diversity of other platforms.

I think Palm is a good acquisition target for RIM(blackberry). They've done a
great job with the OS (one area where palm has really faltered). Both
companies have a history in the corporate world, and I think the palm
experience could make a good dent in the consumer market, if they had the
right partners, and at this point, enough runway.

~~~
vishaldpatel
I thought the ad campaign was pretty good. What I didn't get was why it was
taking forever to get the developer network going ... the iPhone with its
developer program and the iTunes apps store was already out there. Palm
should've had that in the bag before launch.

~~~
megaduck
The simple version is that they screwed up. Palm management thought that they
had a full year after launch to roll out their developer program. They
obviously miscalculated the importance of having a functional app store from
the get-go.

To their credit, they ramped up pretty fast. Last September, they hired Ben
Galbraith and Dion Almaer (the Bespin guys) to run developer relations. Ben
and Dion immediately restructured the developer program, and Palm had their
big developer program rollout in December/January, six months after launch.

As of today, the 'App Catalog' is tiny but growing at a pretty good clip.
They're at over 1500 apps right now, and are growing at around 20% a month. If
they can survive another year, they should be up to Blackberry levels.

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kgrin
Independent of the merits of Palm's products or marketing strategy, it's nice
to see a CEO communicate more-or-less plainly with employees - _especially_
when things aren't going so great.

~~~
pedalpete
I saw Jon speak at the engadget show, and walked away thinking he is a very
modest, smart and caring guy. I absolutely agree that it is great to see him
communicating this well with employees (though I suspect PR had planned that
the letter would be public).

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TomOfTTB
Sadly I think he's being too optimistic. Palm had a sliver of a chance back
when android was in it's early stages. If they'd managed to get some traction
back then they'd at least be able to compete. But now their stuck in between
two companies with mountains of cash who will do whatever it takes to win.
That's not a situation that a new marketing plan can fix.

~~~
megaduck
I'll agree completely that marketing isn't the problem. The problem isn't
product either. The problem is focus.

Palm's target market was 'the fat middle', which meant people who want a
little calendaring, a little media, a little web browsing. The problem is that
people don't want a middle-of-the-road device. People want things that are
awesome.

Palm met their target. The Pre does _everything_ , and does it pretty well.
Multitasking, 3D gaming, calendaring, to-do lists, social networking, email,
photos, and (as of tomorrow) video. It has more features than an iPhone, and
is elegantly designed in a way that Android never will be.

However, there's nothing it does obviously better than the competition.
Blackberries have better email. iPhones are better media players and game
machines. Android has Google Nav, Google Voice, and phones with ginormous
screens. Other than the (incredible) multitasking, there's no clear advantage
to buying a Palm that'll fit in a 30-second sales pitch.

They need to pick a market segment, and go after it _hard_. Business people,
young people, somebody. There's a saying in politics: "The only thing in the
middle of the road is roadkill."

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odajay
About their sales strategy.

Pre were available in Europe very very late. 4th quarter 2009 I think and it
still not available to some countries.

As a previous Palm user, I was really waiting to play woth the Pre, but the
need of a new smartphone and the new android devices closed the deal.

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rbanffy
I guess the first step would be to sell an ulocked phone that could be used
outside the US. I understand carrier partners are important, but this was
pretty boneheaded. When you build a CDMA phone, you don't have a plan-B.

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rimantas
Sounds like he sees that as sales and marketing problem. I am not sure if
things are so simple.

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aresant
PALM down 20% today

[http://finance.yahoo.com/q?d=t&s=PALM](http://finance.yahoo.com/q?d=t&s=PALM)

I had no idea how quickly the stock had lost that much confidence in the
market, lost $1b in value in weeks.

Game over.

~~~
amock
How is it game over? Palm still has a great product and they aren't out of
money. They're not doing as well as they had hoped to do, but that doesn't
mean things aren't going to turn out well for them.

~~~
aresant
They are a proprietary handheld hardware / software developer built around a
branded OS.

To survive in that position you need massive traction.

Apple pulled it off, and in my estimation they are the only ones that could
manage it at the scale they're shooting for.

PALM could try licensing their OS at this point, but it's hard to argue with
FREE and a product with much wider adoption, eg Android.

I would say in current form, PALM is finished after this latest failure.

~~~
pedalpete
I'd love to understand your logic of apple being 'the only ones that could
manage it at the scale they're shooting for'.

What about Blackberry (outsells iPhones I believe), Nokia, etc. This is not a
mature market and there is still boatloads of innovation to happen. What
advantage does apple have over anybody else, with the exception that they
brought out a device which set a great standard to measure competitors
against.

If webOS had been a year earlier, would those positions be reversed? If so,
would you be saying Apple should give it up?

~~~
rimantas

      What advantage does apple have over anybody else,
      with the exception that they brought out a device
      which set a great standard to measure competitors
      against.
    

Don't you think that coming out with device like this _is_ the advantage Apple
has? Or rather capability to design such device.

~~~
pedalpete
No, I don't agree with that. Remember the Motorola Razr? That was 'the device'
to have, and Moto was almost completely out of the market within a few years.
I don't expect Apple to rest on their laurels, but they have competitors
gunning for them, and this won't be a market where everybody has only one
device. This may not even be as homogeneous as the pc market. Just my 2cents.

