Palm posts $22m Q3 loss

[Titch]

Palm gave us a heads-up back in late February that its upcoming earnings report wouldn't exactly be cause for celebration, and today the news has become official: the outfit recorded a net loss of $22 million during its fiscal Q3, which still looks rosy compared to the $98 million loss it suffered this quarter a year ago. All told, the firm shipped 960,000 smartphones in the period, which represents a 23 percent uptick from Q2 2010 and a nearly 300 percent increase compared to this quarter in 2009. Unfortunately, sell-through wasn't exactly stellar, with just 408,000 units changing hands -- that's a 29 percent decline from last quarter and a 15 percent drop year-over-year. We get the impression that it's waiting for carriers to get down to replenishment levels, but it's hard to say when that'll happen. Jon Rubinstein, Palm's chairman and CEO, was obviously not thrilled about the news, but he's mirroring statements made to employees just over a fortnight ago with this quote:

"Our recent underperformance has been very disappointing, but the potential for Palm remains strong. The work we're doing to improve sales is having an impact, we're making great progress on future products, and we're looking forward to upcoming launches with new carrier partners. Most importantly, we have built a unique and highly differentiated platform in webOS, which will provide us with a considerable - and growing - advantage as we move forward."

We're listening into the earnings call right now, and so far we've heard a few choice quotes. Jon mentioned that Palm has "aggressive roadmaps on the software front that we're working on," and that there were "no changes to our planned carrier launches." We'll let you know if he introduces the Pixi 2 or anything.

Update: The call's over. PreCentral points out a choice quote from Rubinstein:

We had an arrangement with Sprint that when we launched with Sprint that they would invest in marketing and carry the product and for that they would get an exclusive for a period of time. That really determined when we could do our launch at Verizon. I agree with your premise that if we could have launched at Verizon earlier, prior to Droid, that we would have gotten the attention that the Droid got and since I believe that we have a better product, I think we would have even done better.

In other words, Palm -- regardless of Verizon's positioning -- feels like the Pre Plus could've been a legitimate contender as a halo phone for the carrier had it been able to launch sooner, though that opportunity has obviously long since passed. We're not so sure we agree that the Droid and the Pre Plus play in quite the same space, but if nothing else, we like the chutzpah -- now it's time to deliver some new hardware.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/18/p...future-produc/

[The Professor]

Palm is going the way of the dodo. Shame really I really want a pre

[Jordy]

There isn't a more blatant rip of the iPhone than this. While it was quite original looking, Web OS is terrible and I have no respect for it.

[GommeInc]

There isn't a more blatant rip of the iPhone than this. While it was quite original looking, Web OS is terrible and I have no respect for it.

How is it a rip of the iPhone? Or do you mean rip off? I can't tell Both phones seem very different so I'm assuming the later with this answer - the contract of £35 is quite alot seeing as it appears to be a phone with, as you said, the Web OS rather than an OS which can handle a huge range of Apps. The HTC HD2 is on a £35 month contract too, and you get alot more and it uses Windows Mobile 6.5, which is a decent enough phone OS. Its a shame really, seeing as the Palm Pre once held the short title of "iPhone killer" during the run up of its release.

[HotelUser]

They can thank Apple and Google for this.

[Jordy]

How is it a rip of the iPhone? Or do you mean rip off? I can't tell Both phones seem very different so I'm assuming the later with this answer - the contract of £35 is quite alot seeing as it appears to be a phone with, as you said, the Web OS rather than an OS which can handle a huge range of Apps. The HTC HD2 is on a £35 month contract too, and you get alot more and it uses Windows Mobile 6.5, which is a decent enough phone OS. Its a shame really, seeing as the Palm Pre once held the short title of "iPhone killer" during the run up of its release.

Rip of the iPhone.

Just looking at the interface says it all


How unoriginal is that? It pretty much has exactly the same applications too, it tried to sync with iTunes and miserably failed and the WebOS App Store is a rip of the App Store too. It also features the classic iPhone "one button" on the front (Unless you pull out the keyboard of course, which I accept is, original).

It does nothing better than anything else and brought nothing new to the Smartphone arena. Far too similar to the iPhone for my liking.

[HotelUser]

There are certainly similarities. Having said that I think it's generally a good thing when companies in the quaternary industry take eachothers stuff, because it gives us as the consumer more features and more power because one company doesn't hold all the marbles, or just the marbles we like most.

Anyways I'm not defending the Palm Pre and couldn't care less bout it, I haven't and don't wish to use it.

Rip of the iPhone.

Just looking at the interface says it all


How unoriginal is that? It pretty much has exactly the same applications too, it tried to sync with iTunes and miserably failed and the WebOS App Store is a rip of the App Store too. It also features the classic iPhone "one button" on the front (Unless you pull out the keyboard of course, which I accept is, original).

It does nothing better than anything else and brought nothing new to the Smartphone arena. Far too similar to the iPhone for my liking.

[GommeInc]

Rip of the iPhone.

Just looking at the interface says it all

They are similar, but then again, all smartphones have a similar style and Palm Pre just went with what works. The Palm Pre one looks nicer in my opinion (not defending it, just saying). Having the calendar on the lower bar is a wise idea, better than having it as a seperate app at least. But I do agree, they've not really made anything amazing, other smartphones tend to have a few differences - the Windows Mobile, Android and Xperia X10 interfaces all come to mind, and they all use a very good interface (I say Xperia X10 differently to Android, as the home screen uses something Sony Ericsson called the "UX", the Android OS isn't that noticable).

[Casanova]

Their palm operation system is actually quite good comparing to... say most n series nokia's. You're bound to get loads of issues.

Their losses are probably due to their blatant arrogance; they thought the palm pre would be a giant hit in the UK and europe like it was for the US. It hasn't been well recieved and their advertising failed blatantly. They spent over a mil and they got no return. I'm sure their pixie will be a great hit transatlantic but unless they buck up it's not going to even be a fart in a hurricane for the UK. Ill advised shoppers still flock to the iphone... even though their next edition is rumoured for june!

[The Professor]

Rip of the iPhone.

Just looking at the interface says it all



How unoriginal is that? It pretty much has exactly the same applications too, it tried to sync with iTunes and miserably failed and the WebOS App Store is a rip of the App Store too. It also features the classic iPhone "one button" on the front (Unless you pull out the keyboard of course, which I accept is, original).

It does nothing better than anything else and brought nothing new to the Smartphone arena. Far too similar to the iPhone for my liking.

There's only so much you can do with a grid of icons, the pre has rounded edges and icons that aren't all the same shape and the notifications bar and the cards view and so many other things that differentiate it from the iphone OS, showing those two images and making that sweeping statement is completely unfair on palm.

It also brought its synergy system which was the first effective system of bringing together contacts and feeds from social networks as well as the local phone. Since then sony erricson (sp), motorola and HTC have implemented it on their android phones but that was almost a year after palm first did it.

Web OS is also (afaik) written using HTML which in theory should make it extremely easy to write apps for. idk what they're playing at with their app store though, it's a real fail.