Palm sales 'lower than expected,' revenues to miss targets
By Nilay Patel 
posted February 25th 2010 9:50AM
posted February 25th 2010 9:50AM
posted February 25th 2010 9:50AM
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Pity, I really do like the Pre's functionality and style. But Droid just took off like a storm for the iPhone leftover market.
@borland502 Agreed. I really want a Pre, but if the momentum doesn't pick up I'm getting a Android based phone instead.
Hmm. I wonder why sales were so low if so many people seem to like the Pre.
Oh, wait. I know. It's problaby because Palm signed a STUPID EXCLUSIVITY AGREEMENT WITH SPRINT and lost all its momentum after CES 2009.
Could that be it?
(Is my rage evident?)
Sincerely,
Palm Fan Stuck in AT&T Land
@Smart People Play Tuba The Pre has tons of issues. It's not this angelic, AAA phone that is just marketed poorly.
Also, very poignant graphic, btw. Great work, Nilay. :)
@JONNNathannn
You may be right. I sure wish I could find out for myself!
(still trying to hide my rage)
@donv69 Well I'll say this about the device: Even if Palm vanishes I don't regret the purchase. It's easy to use and you don't have to replace the firmware to have a little fun with it; the Preware community has made patching and modding a breeze.
I was forced to buy a Touch for my Audible books though.*
*OK, Ok, and for fun too.
@SPPT
Well, they may not have had a choice. They were short of cash and needed funding. I doubt AT&T would have been willing to foot the bill against the iPhone.
@borland502 how about buying what works for you, not what is simply popular. Are we still in high school where everyone has to have the cool sneakers?
@Smart People Play Tuba
I agree. Palm used to sell so many phones because they had many carriers with both CDMA and GSM. If they sold unlocked GSM versions here in the US, I'm sure they would have sold a lot more. I used to sell unlocked Treos at work and we sold tons of them to business people who traveled a lot. Can't do that with CDMA...
I'd be interested in a Pre if it didn't seem to be plagued with hardware issues...
@krosref Huh? I did buy what works for me rather than what's popular.
@borland502: Droid? Nexus (no)One? Hate to break the news to you, Palm, Google, Verizon, Sprint & T-Mo, but there's a world outside of the Engadget boards, and the public have spoken. The word of mouth for Android outside of tech heads is poor - they've seen the future, and there's an Apple in their mouths. Once Apple swings the hammer with a one/two first gen iPad/fourth gen iPhone to secure a sweetheart deal with Verizon, watch Android join Palm in the death spiral. WinMo7 has an outside shot, simply because of the synergy with Windows. All of that Google stuff is straight to the dead pool once Windows/Office/Bing gets their cloud act together.
@krosref
except that in a market where the ecosystem is everthing, what's popular also happens to have a large impact on what will work for you. Just ask anyone who ever bought a Saturn Dreamcast.
@tonicboy I bought a SEGA Dreamcast... and I was very happy with it while it lasted. :D
@borland502: Hahaha. Check out this (fail)storm from Gruber: "Four months after debuting as the top-of-the-line Android handset, the Droid is now selling on Amazon for just $50 (with a Verizon contract). Still can’t upgrade it to Android OS 2.1, either."
Seems to me that the Droid has just been downranked to oblivion.
as usual, i might add.
:thump:
@borland502
2 negative Palm articles in 2 days. Is anyone really surprised by this 'miss'?
I dont know why its not more popular. I have an ipod touch and I think the Pre is much cooler, it does so much more its ridiculous. The worst thing about the Pre is its speed, its crappy framerate is really jarring, they really need to get a faster Pre released.
I got to see an Android phone and I think it might be a little better than the Pre, it doesnt have the speed issues and does a lot of things with a slick interface.
The Pre and Android are far and away the best phones on the market, as far as Im considered the iPhone isnt even in the same league (especially not Blackberry and Windows). They should be selling better, I dont know how Palm is screwing it all up, maybe its just too many years of mediocrity associated with the brand.
@Smart People Play Tuba
Given that most people's complaints with the Pre typically had nothing to do with Sprint, and the fact that Sprint's plans were far less expensive, and that Palm gained no momentum once it moved to Verizon, I think the issues fall squarely on Palm not any given carrier. Specifically Palm's hardware.
@borland502
In the UK, the Pre is the same price as the iphone at launch and the hardware was junk. No wonder its failing.
New hardware, better pricing and it may have a life as a 'enthusiasts' platform.
Maybe Palm and Motorola should unite their forces (or weaknesses :P)
@borland502 Palm has a history of making decent products. I loved my LifeDrive, but they seem to always be stuck in the present and never look forward. They never upgraded their interface for Vista's release, until 7 almost came out, etc etc. Palm's failure is their own, it's about poor management, not bad products.
Motorola's management was just as bad, it seems to have improved but their product designers are stuck in the 1980's.
@Smart People Play Tuba - I completely agree with you. I must add though that Verizon did nothing to help sell their stock of Palm devices. I went into a store the other day and they told me they had sold a total of 4 palm devices since they debuted... If Verizon wants to sell a phone they can, take the Droid for example.
And I am also a Palm fan stuck with At&t - so i had by girlfriend buy a Pre.
@SickRick Verizon's ad campaign for the Pre just plain sucks. This is the phone for mom, really? How the hell are they going to sell these by saying something like that.
@borland502 Palm should be used to slow, agonizing deaths by now.
@borland502
The Palm death watch continues .....
The Rube should brush up his resume and the dick-head at Elevation partners might need to take a calmative and explain to investors how they burned through hundreds of millions of their money.....
RIM, iPhone, Android will battle it out and WinMo7 has a chance because its M$ and they have so much cash for their Office and Windows monopolies.
@COCOViper
I wasn't slamming Sprint. I was slamming exclusivity agreements, which-- I think we can all agree-- really SUCK.
@sintricate
Right. For example they didn't get my money because there is no unlocked gsm version. :D Good for me.
@Smart People Play Tuba
Ahh agreed!
@borland502 Indeed... Good bye Palm...
You will be surely missed (NOT!)
-1 American company in the world :D
@borland502
Sprint sold 1.5 million Palm Pre phones... Verizon, are you listening?
While some are commenting and others are speculating - Palm is fixing the Verizon mess. They have sent 200 sales ambassadors to Verizon wireless stores to get their employees a little motivated. These are the same employees who have been persuading Palm customers to buy other branded phones.
Verizon is starting to make Sprint look good! Sprint has been able to sell approximately 500,000 Palm Pre phones each quarter for a total of approximately 1.5 million in 3 quarters.
There's no room for a 3rd Smartphone. The iPhone has too much of a marketshare.
@jmiotto well i think that the iphone is less than a smartphone. so i dont agree with you there.
@emopoops well, i think that the iphone is a big part of the market for smartphones. If my friend is thinking about a smartphone and isn't a super-nerd, he'll probably get the iphone based on name-recognition. Or Droid
@jmiotto - what a load of nonsense. The worldwide smartphone market is huge and can easily sustain 5 or more players in the long term (as it probably will anyway)...
@NewL Yes, but on different OS?
@jmiotto: actually there's STILL plenty of room for smartphones, since all estimates say that smartphones have only hit about 30% of market saturation, and probably won't reach that point until 2013 at the earliest.
To think that the smartphone OS game is over with another 3 years left in the game is kind of premature, when you look at it objectively.
Whether Palm can afford to keep playing that game is a different story.
@jmiotto
RIM's Blackberries have more marketshare than the iPhone, yet the iPhone, Android, and to a much lesser extent WinMo still coexist.
I think Palm needs to introduce a new high-end model, as opposed to just a refresh.
@Prevacator I agree with you. If Palm doesn't give Pre a facelift, it could be out of the game, with windows phone 7, iPhone OS, and Android out there. If Pre had come out earlier, it would have been a smash hit, but it came too late.
@emopoops
yeah, almost 200,000 apps, what a useless piece of crap
@jmiotto I also agree with Alan Strangis.
@jmiotto - yes. Symbian, BlackBerry OS, iPhone OS, Android & WP7 are definitely here to stay, and both Bada and MeeGo have every chance of securing at least a nice single-percent marketshare in the next few years...
Palm's Achilles heel is simply that they've always been short on cash in the last few years, so they can't afford big device portfolios or huge international ad campaigns...
@Alan Strangis
1. Nokia's OS's
2. RIM
3. iPhone
4. Android
5. Windows 7
That's enough. WebOS was doomed from the start. I honestly think that Palm should have just laid off most of their OS development staff and concentrated on making Android & (this year) Windows Mobile handsets. They could have used their lower costs to concentrate on build quality on the Android Pre, as well as keeping the price more competitive.
@preslove I agree. WebOS never had a full chance. If a newer version comes out with something everyone MUST have on all the networks (e.g makes pbj sandwiches), it will survive. However, I don't think that will happen.
@Wesscoast I just got an iPod Touch because the Pre doesn't have an Audible client. Those 200,000 apps are only worth mentioning because the sheer mass ensures that there are at least 50 worthwhile ones for any individual.
Much like YouTube the total numbers are meaningless and the app store is just as choatic. Apple still hasn't managed to provide index and search options with even a fraction of the usefulness of say, Amazon.
@jmiotto as someone who has a pre and has had Winmo phones granted nothing above 6.1)
IT IS SOOO MUCH EASIER TO USE. It is such an easy, intuitive interface it has been (except recently with some slowdown) the most trouble free smartphone I have ever had.
Granted I still am irritated at lack of Video or Voicedial.
@preslove
Or they could just do what Microsoft and Google does; concentrate on the software and leave the hardware to third party manufacturers. Now that would be interesting!
@jmiotto
Actually, I think they released the Pre too early. If they had released a phone later without the hardware issues (maybe around the time of the Droid release), Palm would still have had a lot of positive publicity centered around WebOS. Of course their marketing sucked as bad as their timing.
for one, the pres keyboard is really cheap looking. the style is OUT. i think they peaked on the centro and treo pro design wise. the pixi and the pre are very unactractive.
Their problem started when they launch it on Sprint first, should have just partnered right off the bat with Verizon.