Palm CEO Ed Colligan says "We're working on it," promises "breakthrough" devices

Palm's latest quarterly results might have been pretty gloomy, with a loss of $9.6M on revenue of $349M and an expected drop in revenue to $310M next quarter, but according to CEO Ed Colligan, the ship is about to be righted. Speaking to analysts during the company's financial results conference call, Colligan said that a combination of cost-cutting measures, a reduction in the number of devices in Palm's lineup, and work on the next Palm OS would revive Palm's flagging fortunes. Ed also said that there was "no acceptable excuse" for missing the launch of the Treo 755p on Verizon in Q4, and that Palm was "done" revising existing products -- instead focusing on "breakthrough" devices and "revolutionary designs." We can only hope he's telling the truth -- and of course, we've got some suggestions for him if he's out of ideas.

[webon @ Dec 19th 2007 8:11PM]

C'mon Ed lets see that new inexpensive, super fast, all inclusive, topnotch UI, Palm TX2.
What?... too much to ask?

[Bruce @ Dec 19th 2007 8:54PM]

Seriously... Palm should just shrivel up and go die in a corner and just finish being a wikipedia post on what was.

If I was'nt locked into my contract on this P.O.S. Treo 700P on verizon for another 11 months practically being held hostage by my balls unless I wanna pay an early out contract fee, I woulda left palm and moved to an iPhone or blackberry.

It's my fault too for "believing" in palm a lil over a year ago. Quite frankly palm is dead. And the only time we should EVER see another post on engadget.com at the top of the page should be with PALM and the words R.I.P. written accross it like the Sony rear-projectors post just below this one.

I hate my Treo, and nothing would give me more joy than to go to the top of the empire state building 3 blocks from my job and just drop it from the observation deck and watch it practically demolecularize from the impact on the asphalt below.

Ed should then follow in kind by taking that walk aswell off the edge as well. The only person that lies more than him on promising the world and not delivering crap except the same "recycled" product over and over again is him and the prince of darkness himself. Lucifer.

[Andrew @ Dec 20th 2007 12:36AM]

I like my Treo.

[tnkgrl @ Dec 20th 2007 1:34AM]

@Bruce, nothing stops you from selling your Treo to a Verizon customer, and buy another Verizon device, contract free, and transfer your ESN.

[Ghen @ Dec 20th 2007 8:19AM]

also @ bruce, if you can't decide between the polar opposites of a blackberry and iphone then you're just trolling.

[Derek @ Dec 19th 2007 8:36PM]

Haven't we heard this before? And what was that "revolutionary" device? The Foleo.

[Jack @ Dec 20th 2007 11:41AM]

aye, sounds like they are prepping the Foleo 2

[CharlieX @ Dec 19th 2007 8:39PM]

It seems a cyclic in gadget world: the little renegade company comes up, revolutionizes the industry, gets huge, hires lots of suits and analysts and actuaries, assumes you'll eat their pizza no matter how bad it gets, and then another company comes up and steals your thunder.

Fire the suits! dump the analysts! you've got money, you've got great engineers, hire some young designers, steal some ideas from your competition that's working, and become the envy of your peers again.

Foleo! FTL!

[Reid B. @ Dec 19th 2007 8:44PM]

I couldn't wait forever Ed. Your stuff is for shit with Vista. A year's worth of excuses and still nothing to show for it. You should've been hiring half of the US and Chinese programmers to GET IT DONE instead of laying people off left and right. Is there anyone left to produce "revolutionary devices"? Sorry, I can't wait yet another year, I moved to HTC and Windows Mobile 6 and have a better system. Call me when you have more than promises and I'll think about it.

[JAmerican @ Dec 19th 2007 8:52PM]

I think the best thing for Palm to do is fire Ed, and get Engineers who have a passion to build great products and people who listen to their customers. People are tired of bulky, small screened treos. That don't mean make a crappy laptop to accompany someone. That means change the dam Treo design. The TX2 with cell radio is something people have wanted since the the TX originally came out. I bet Apple was listening to us because they got a slick TX like device while you still making crappy Treos. I used to be a Palm-faithful but I bought my first WM device and I want a Kaiser next year.

JAmerican

[Richard @ Dec 19th 2007 8:56PM]

Fooleo me once, shame on you.

Fooleo me twice...

[Reader @ Dec 19th 2007 10:03PM]

Puns complete me.

[resource @ Dec 19th 2007 9:19PM]

In 2053.

[ToniCipriani @ Dec 19th 2007 9:38PM]

Just license the damn OS from ACCESS already, Palm...

They're already giving you a big middle finger by making the Garnet VM on the Nokia Tablets...

[Reader @ Dec 19th 2007 9:47PM]

Oh man, after reading this I'm totally gonna go buy up some Palm stock!

[webon @ Dec 19th 2007 11:13PM]

Dude Bcarefull with the not thoroughly explained sarcasm, EG readers are't very forgiving

http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/18/dell-doth-protest-too-much-on-xt-pricing/comments/9364056/

[Bernhard @ Dec 19th 2007 9:52PM]

Let's not give up our hopes on Palm. After all, they have come up with some innovative things such as cancelling that Treo Companion...

[strider_mt2k @ Dec 19th 2007 11:19PM]

How many times do you expect us to trust you, dingus CEO who wastes time and money...big time?

I can't speak for anyone else, but Palm lost me long ago.

[ChillyWilly @ Dec 19th 2007 11:29PM]

If there is one product that I hope they still plan to spend time "revising" it's Palm Desktop and Hotsync for the Mac.

C'mon Ed, you updated it for Tiger. Now lets get it updated for Leopard. Otherwise, you might as well find a way to cut a deal with Mark/Space and include The Missing Link inside each and every Treo and Centro box.

[decypher44 @ Dec 20th 2007 11:55AM]

"If there is one product that I hope they still plan to spend time "revising" it's Palm Desktop and Hotsync for the Mac."

QFT!

I love my new Centro. In all honesty, I really do. BUt syncing with my Mac is horrible!

[amortya @ Dec 19th 2007 11:34PM]

Just so everyone knows - all the Palm Treos running Win Mo are made by HTC. The Palm Treo 750 and 750v is actually known as the HTC Cheetah...google "xda developers" and check it out

And compared to a stinking Blackberry, a Treo 750 with WM 6 just rocks - it has allowed me to practically leave my laptop at home/ office when I travel nowadays

As a FYI - I use my Treo 750 to send/ receive email, edit docs on the go, listen to mp3s, watch movies, surf the net, IM friends/ family, take ad-hoc pics & videos - so I do consider myself a pretty thorough "power" user...now, if only it would support Blackberry Connect, I would call it the perfect PDA phone

The only thing a BB does well is email - but once RIM releases their BB emulation software for WM 6, there is really no reason to turn back to a BB...

I am sick and tired of paying a premium for BB service (in comparison to vanilla GPRS/ EDGE) and not to mention a hefty premium for just an email device (can't really be called a PDA or pocket pc). The darn thing doesn't even allow a business user to edit a MS Word document without 3rd party software for cryin' out loud!! And in this day and age, how can u not have 3G??? WTF??

Not to mention the lack of 3rd party software - whatever little 3rd party software is available is frikin' expensive...

Just my two cents worth...

And yes, I agree that Palm really does need to get its mojo back

I loved the Treo 650, went to a BB 7290, 8700, 8300 (Curve) and came back to a Treo 750 earlier this yr - great product, but sorry to say - it ain't made by them and neither is the O/S theirs....all credit goes to HTC and Win Mo for this one...

[Lewislink @ Dec 19th 2007 11:50PM]

After spending $400 on the worst product ever released from any company, the Treo 680, Palm deserves to go belly up because the problems with the 680 are so bad that they couldn't possibly have tried to build a good product. I'm talking about freezing up quite regularly, rebooting itself often and not being able to make calls because the phone is froze and it would freeze when answering calls. The CPU was slow and sluggish for a 333MHz CPU. The calculator was so slow that a second after a number press the number would show up. The features were slashed like the call duration counter and so forth.

I thought I was upgrading from a Treo 600 when I bought this stinker of a fake phone but I actually downgraded or more appropriately just threw $400 away. I was wanting the faster CPU and the higher res screen of the new Treo over the 600 but all I received was a higher res screen and a boatload of problems. It was so problematic that at times I just wanted to fling it against a wall and my brother also bought one at the same time and his did the same thing; his was just as faulty as mine.

Palm has lost a lot of customers because of their decision to screw them with the 680. I won't even consider another Palm product and neither will my brother. In fact, my brother was angry with his 20 year old son one day and decided to punish him effectively by giving him the Treo 680 that he longed to get rid of. He and I replaced that pile of manure with an iPhone and have found relief. The iPhone isn't perfect, it can be sluggish after a while using the browser but compared to the Treo 680 the iPhone is a gleaming, perfect jewel.

I don't believe it is in a person's capacity to say deep enough how bad the Treo 680 is. Of course, though, we both bought unlocked versions of the 680 and they weren't supported by any particular cell provider although I was using mine with my GSM cell provider and my brother was using his with his current GSM cell provider, so we didn't have the luxury of getting Treo 680s that had been approved and tweaked by a cell provider. Those who mght not be having troubles with their 680s probably bought them from a cell provider.

[Ray @ Dec 20th 2007 12:02AM]

I started with the Treo 600 about three years ago. After 4 hardware failures with the 600, and was upgraded to the 650 which I still use today. I think the 650 was a step forward in some areas, but a step back in others. I’ve checked out the competition, and although they have a lot more bells and whistles, I do not find them as easy or as practical for business use. I think Palm got it right with the core applications of contacts, calendar, to-do, and notes. I use those functions more than anything else and they get the job done very simply and quickly. It is my hope that they do not revolutionize to compete with entertainment devices at the expense of simplicity and practicality.

[amortya @ Dec 20th 2007 1:21AM]

Agreed that the Palm 650 was one heck of an awesome device. In many ways its still the best PDA phone out there in terms of practicality, speed of the UI, simplicity and core features - it just works!

Pity that it doesn't support 3G or doesn't have a better camera or it doesn't support the SD format Wi-Fi card - had the above 3 features been available, I would have never gone away from it...

But then again like I said in my earlier post - I have now found solace in the Treo 750

Looks like to me that Palm's phones only work if they're labeled x50 - the 650 was great, the 750 is great, the 550 (aka variant of the Centro) ain't bad at all - who knows - maybe the Treo 850 will save their skin and turn them around?

[Lewislink @ Dec 20th 2007 1:32AM]

I hope not. That company likes to screw people. Be thankful you all bought your Treos from a service provider because the service provider made sure to limit the built in problems with Palm devices.

[earroyo @ Dec 20th 2007 1:37AM]

Wake me when dinner is done! Same story again.

[Johan S @ Dec 20th 2007 3:24AM]

What they need

1. A highly responsive UI

2. A Ghz CPU with an nVidia mobile gpu

3. WVGA display

4. GPS

It may cost a lot but it will be the Mercedes of phones

[keithwwalker @ Dec 20th 2007 3:18AM]

True, time to fire the management and bring out what Palm faithful have been clamoring for: a 480x320 touchscreen phone. It isn't rocket science, and I bet that Palm wouldn't have lost money this quarter (or next) had they had a big screen phone in their portfolio (oh no I said folio...)

Another colossal miscue, not licensing Access OS. How far does your head have to be up your ass to work on a parallel OS that will likely be very similar? Wonder why they are late to market with other products? They are duplicating efforts on the OS, and putting themselves in a hole.

People loved the Palm OS because it just plain worked in PDA's. Too bad it seems they could never sort out those issues with cell radios and connectivity...

I now have an HTC x7501 phone/pda. WM6 isn't great, but I refuse to buy a phone with a screen smaller than 480x320. The HTC has 640x480 vga.

[Ihar `Philips` Filipau @ Dec 20th 2007 6:10AM]

> "We're working on it"

First thought was "Did religion finally allowed them to buy iPhone?"

There is no need for "breakthrough" and "revolutionary" stuff - just make good *UP-TO-DATE* palm with *UP-TO-DATE* software for today's needs.

[boolean22 @ Dec 20th 2007 8:15AM]

I hope they get something good... I want to change my ROKR E2, but nothing is worth the price...

There are simply no phones I like that can do at least part of what this creature does... and I'm looking for a Smartphone right now, cause I wanna have a taste of mobile computer whatsoever.

[Galley @ Dec 20th 2007 9:43AM]

Anyone want a great deal on a LifeDrive?

[Matt @ Dec 20th 2007 6:38PM]

How about getting some good Mac, Linux and Vista support for Palm devices. It is horrible!!! It really isn't Palm's devices that are failing them right now, it is the integration with computers. When was the last time Palm Desktop and Hotsync were updated, 2004?


Palm really needs to revamp Hotsync to get it to correctly sync. And while they are at it why don't they just ditch their Palm Desktop software? Does anyone use that anyways? With the new calendar in Vista/Live and Outlook just use those. They are better products anyways. And for the love of God Palm let me effectively sync my Palm to Mac OS X without having to spend $40 on third party software to make it happen!!!!

[JozJonlin @ Dec 20th 2007 10:37AM]

How about a phone with a screen like the iPhone, but with a slide out QWERTY keyboard, and WiFi? Give me 8 gigs of internal memory and backward compatability to my massive collection of Palm software. It should also have support for SDHC for expansion.

Come on Palm, It's time to join the new millenium!

[Ray @ Dec 20th 2007 2:29PM]

That is what I want too.

[Z @ Dec 20th 2007 1:47PM]

" "We're working on it,"... Promises "breakthrough" devices..."

Yeah. Sure. Whatever he says. More of the same we've heard from them over the years.

Yawn.


A good example of a breakthrough device would be an Apple iPhone or some similar new-fangled device. So unless Palm comes out with something as good or better than that (which they won't), then they need to keep silent and quit boring us with their drivel.

Their idea of a breakthrough device is a Treo in a new color.

[Lewislink @ Dec 20th 2007 5:02PM]

Funny stuff! Palm coming out with a device that's as good as the iPhone...ROFL! They can't even come out with a phone that works right and to do a decent phone, they'd have to overcome their propensity for screwing customers. That's not going to happen.

They might come out with one that looks as good but there is no possible way that screwed up company will ever do anything right, no matter what.

[Fanfoot @ Dec 20th 2007 6:44PM]

Look, if the Treo 755p on Verizon was half as thick, I'd buy it right now. Is that too much to ask? Even if I have to charge it every 12 hours. The Treos are just too big!!!!

I'd love a better touchscreen and all that, but holy god my WM5 Motorola Q is a POS and I need to get back to a Palm...