Palm cuts revenue forcast

[MrGoodtunes]

Not too surprising:

Palm slashed its revenue targets on weak demand for its smartphones...only weeks after Verizon Wireless began to sell Palm's Pre and Pixi...did not advertise the Palm phones well...heavily marketing the Droid phone from Motorola...

Full article is here:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2524621020100225

[snowplow54]

It's a shame. I've heard nothing but good things about webOS. unfortunately the biggest complaint has been the build quality of the devices. Also, the design of the Pre is not for everyone. they need to start rolling out some more consumer friendly phones. They could keep the same basic design. just give it a bigger screen, updated keyboard. They also need to add features that are becoming more and more standard (1ghz processor, internal compass, things of that nature).

The good news is that the upgrade to webOS 1.4 is just around the corner, and it's supposedly bringing flash. So that could give them a much needed advantage.

[akayareal]

At this point, Palm needs to start licensing out WebOS to other phone manufacturers so they can atleast make better quality phones. If they dont want to do that then then need to start producing phones that compliment their OS.

[slbailey1]

Palms bigest mistake was gutting it's PIM applications.

[monkeyboy]

Originally Posted by slbailey1

Palms bigest mistake was gutting it's PIM applications.

Agreed... I was majorly disappointed not to see even a credible replacement for PalmOS Memo. And the death of Palm Desktop without a replacement was also a mistake...

But also Sprint killed the Pre... by forcing new plans... no existing customers are allowed to put a Pre/Pixi on an existing legacy plan ... that locked out 80-90% of all of Sprint's current customers who are the greatest pool of customers likely to adopt the Pre.

[x10guy]

Originally Posted by monkeyboy

Agreed... I was majorly disappointed not to see even a credible replacement for PalmOS Memo. And the death of Palm Desktop without a replacement was also a mistake...

But also Sprint killed the Pre... by forcing new plans... no existing customers are allowed to put a Pre/Pixi on an existing legacy plan ... that locked out 80-90% of all of Sprint's current customers who are the greatest pool of customers likely to adopt the Pre.

I totally agree about the Sprint's restrictive plan upgrades for older plan holders. Requiring the Everything plan was the kiss of death. When there was sooooo much hoopla over the Pre when it first came out there was tremendous interest in it. But Sprint made it too restrictive to get it and the initial sales were WAY below expectations. Then along came Android and end of story. Opening up to the Verizon market was too little too late.

Today's announcement is really the nail in the coffin. With this news, NO one is going to get a Pre. Who wants a smartphone and OS that will possibly defunct in 6 months. Too bad, because they had an opportunity to make it something special but Sprint partly ruined it.

[badchad]

This is a shame since I hear so many good things about WebOS.

For me, the build quality prevented me from purchasing. Other than that I still maintain that Palm's biggest mistake was the sizing of the Pre. The screen size was too small for easy touch input, the keyboard was too small to be useful. Had they gone with a 3.6, they might have been able to space out the KB just a tad more and made it stellar.

At the time, the plan restrictions seemed like a big deal. However, the trend to forcing an "Everything plus" plan on consumers is not likely to stop. It's the same with the hero, and my completely speculative prediction is that WM7 will require it as well.

[x10guy]

Originally Posted by badchad

This is a shame since I hear so many good things about WebOS.

...
At the time, the plan restrictions seemed like a big deal. However, the trend to forcing an "Everything plus" plan on consumers is not likely to stop. It's the same with the hero, and my completely speculative prediction is that WM7 will require it as well.

Requiring the Everything plan with Android devices is a bit different than the Palm WebOS. Google has the budget and size to market the Android OS, Palm doesn't. Android came out on practically every carrier. WebOS wasn't. Palm made a strategic mistake in picking Sprint. And Sprint made a strategic mistake restricting it only to Everything plans.

Sprint and Palm should have made it as easy as possible to get the Pre with existing voice/data plans. They didn't and as a result, unless Palm gets bought out, sadly it will probably be gone by the end of the year.

[MrGoodtunes]

Another nail gets pounded into Palm's casket:

http://money.cnn.com/2010/03/19/tech...ce=yahoo_quote