3 ms·

Palm CEO’s Letter to Employees

19 points by asnyder 17y ago

kgrin 17y ago
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 17y ago
  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).
aresant 17y ago
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 17y ago
  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 17y ago
    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 17y ago
      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 17y ago
        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 17y ago
        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.
    - Auzy 17y ago
      I totally agree. Symbian and Android are open sourced so there is no chance any other manufacturer would be interested in paying to use WebOS. They should have open sourced from the start. Their problem is that unlike other companies, they don't want to give anything back (and this annoys consumers). This strategy works for Apple only because there are many who are heavily biased towards Apple, and Steve Job's often deceives them (like during the iPhone launch, he strongly implied he invented Multitouch, and that no other manufacturer would support multitouch because Apple patented it). Furthermore, nobody even seems to be selling Palm phones here in Australia. Since palm are the only manufacturer which makes WebOS phones, that means nobody in Australia uses WebOS. That being said though, Palm's phones aren't that great anyway
- icefox 17y ago
  It is in the article.... "we stated that we expect to report revenues for Q3 between $300 and $320 million. We also announced that we expect our revenue for this fiscal year to fall below the guidance we gave to Wall Street, which ranged from $1.6 to $1.8 billion."
pedalpete 17y ago
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 17y ago
  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 17y ago
    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.
TomOfTTB 17y ago
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 17y ago
  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."
odajay 17y ago
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.
rbanffy 17y ago
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.
rimantas 17y ago
Sounds like he sees that as sales and marketing problem. I am not sure if things are so simple.

19 points by asnyder 17y ago

kgrin 17y ago

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 17y ago
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).

aresant 17y ago

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 17y ago
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 17y ago
  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 17y ago
    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 17y ago
      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 17y ago
        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.
  - Auzy 17y ago
    I totally agree. Symbian and Android are open sourced so there is no chance any other manufacturer would be interested in paying to use WebOS. They should have open sourced from the start. Their problem is that unlike other companies, they don't want to give anything back (and this annoys consumers). This strategy works for Apple only because there are many who are heavily biased towards Apple, and Steve Job's often deceives them (like during the iPhone launch, he strongly implied he invented Multitouch, and that no other manufacturer would support multitouch because Apple patented it). Furthermore, nobody even seems to be selling Palm phones here in Australia. Since palm are the only manufacturer which makes WebOS phones, that means nobody in Australia uses WebOS. That being said though, Palm's phones aren't that great anyway
icefox 17y ago
It is in the article.... "we stated that we expect to report revenues for Q3 between $300 and $320 million. We also announced that we expect our revenue for this fiscal year to fall below the guidance we gave to Wall Street, which ranged from $1.6 to $1.8 billion."

pedalpete 17y ago

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 17y ago
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 17y ago
  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.

TomOfTTB 17y ago

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 17y ago
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."

odajay 17y ago

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.

rbanffy 17y ago

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.

rimantas 17y ago

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