The year was September 2005. Palm was riding high, having sold close to 500,000 Treo smartphones the preceding quarter. The dominated the fledgling consumer smartphone market, and were putting up stiff competition against Research in Motion’s BlackBerry line. Fast forward two years to September 2007: Palm’s sales were up to 689,000 units for the quarter, but RIM had moved 3.2 million BlackBerries worldwide and Apple had just introduced their iPhone to the tune of one million sold on AT&T alone. A year later, they’d move that many of the next generation in three days.
Up until recently, things had been looking pretty bad for Palm. Delays, aging software, and shrinking marketshare made it look like Palm was about to sink into oblivion. Back in 2000, Palm stock traded at an ungodly $669/share (adjusting for splits and dividends), today it’s at just over $11 (up from a low of a pitiful $1.14 last December). While the past nine years have had Palm stock suffering a decline of 98%, Apple is up 282% while RIM is up 188%.
The relative stock prices of Palm (blue), Apple (red) and Research in
Motion (orange), courtesy of Google Finance.
Stock analysis website 24/7 Wall St. has seen fit to include Palm’s perceived failure to fully translate from PDA to smartphone and subsequent enormous stock devaluation as one of its top ten biggest tech failures of the past decade. Palm has joined the ranks of operating system Windows Vista (though Microsoft is still going strong), decimated PC builder Gateway, defunct disc format HD DVD, crumbling VOIP provider Vonage, Google-owned money pit YouTube, satellite radio provider Sirius XM, Microsoft’s Zune MP3 player, $5 billion satellite phone failure Iridium, and odd-ball people-mover Segway.
Is there hope for Palm? While they’ll have trouble ever hoping to topple RIM and Apple, and Palm’s executives have made it clear that’s not their goal, the memories of Palm’s market dominance collapse are still fresh in the minds of many. Maybe, just maybe, the Pre (and webOS by extension) will be that breath of life that Palm needs. Though we’re never going to see $669 a share for Palm stock ever again.
Comments
Funny people never mention Motorolas phone business failing, or that Apple was on the verge of extinction not too long ago.
But yet poor Palm gets the spotlight.
Most people don't remember that Microsoft is the ONLY reason the Apple is still around today.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/cyberspace/july-dec97/apple_8-6.html
People do mention Motos failings.
Palm gets the spotlight because the incredible way they fell from the market leader
Palm is the underdog.
its a part of apples machine days before a launch i tell ya.
they are so scared they are trying to take focus of this incredible phone. thats all. even though i didn't get chosen as one of the selected reviewers, i am ready to shout to the roof top how wonderful the phone and the os is.
let me at'em!!!
TeckieGirl40
The piece has nothing to do with "Apple's machine".
That is an investment blog and even if Palm hits one out of the park it will will remain one of the worst handled companies from an investor perspective in the period mentioned.
Did you read the article?
If the Eos is a stellar mobile like the Pre, then we will see a next-gen Palm take a comfy 3rd place. Perhaps, if RIM's phones continue to suck for 5 years as they have, we will see Palm gain in marketshare.
I really hope the Eos takes off as well. I don't want it, but if it pushes WebOS into more mainstream, that will just help us out... :)
There are always guys who don't get it.
It's surprising ho many analysts don't get many things right about the companies they follow.
Well Palm deserved the bad press. They were the ones to screw up what they had. There were so many issues with their products that they should've been ashamed.
I've stuck it out mainly because I haven't had all the problems that others had.
I just hope they remember what happens when they neglect customers and falter on details.
Please don't screw up the Pre.
I'm getting the Pre (3-4 of them) to upgrade the lines in my family plan. However let's not pretend Palm is free of guilt here.
There is so much Apple-bashing on this web site, I tell you!
So much talk about "Pre is the iPhone killer" and hopes that iPhone gets crushed by all the fanboys. Please remember one thing - without iPhone, you would not have your Pre. iPhone kicked Palm into getting off their fat lazy butts, and now you'll finally have your phone. You should thank Apple for that. Palm created the PDA and smartphone, and I respect that.
That famous quote from that idiot Ed Colligan - "We've learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone," he said. "PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in.'" Well, that's exactly what Apple did.
http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/9110/colligan-laughs-off-iphone-compe...
Put Apple out of business, Palm goes back to the La-Z-boy with a beer and the TV controller.
First off, count how many times someone commented "the iphone killer, the iphone will be crushed." Secondly, your contradicting yourself, you say "without iPhone, you would not have your Pre." Then you comment, "Palm created the PDA and smartphone, and I respect that." -Correct, if it weren't for Palm there would be no iphone. Lastly, WebOS went into development before the 1st generation iphone was released, the Patent filing for Automatic Call Filtering in September 2007 is evidence to that.
"Lastly, WebOS went into development before the 1st generation iphone was released, the Patent filing for Automatic Call Filtering in September 2007 is evidence to that."
True, but the start date of development doesn't make for a phone that's in your hands.
The point is, let's stop competition bashing. Competition is good for everyone. We all benefit!
Lets also not forget that Apple's first phone was brutal and erased from Apple history. It took Treo to prove the concept was sound. I'm sure it wasn't the sterile Blackberry that inspired Apple to add a phone to the iPod and give it a touch screen interface.
Uninformed: Only a idiot would think Palm created the PDA or the smartphone.
IBM creates the first smartphone and Nokia created the first widely sold one smartphone. Both LONG before Palm
Casio created the first PDA and Apple create the first widely sold one. Both before Palm.
Don't treat people here like they are idiots with idiotic claims. We know better.
Palm made good cheaper copies of existing products in PDA and Smartphone markets, that is how it got its name.
Only an idiot would use incorrect grammar.
Grammar looks fine, as do facts.
Only an abject retard would claim Palm created the PDA or Smartphone.
... And only a twit would point to a grammar mistake -- while making one themselves.
IBM created the first smartphone? Which one? When? And *how* exactly are you defining a "smartphone"? PDA+phone in one device? Or some other criteria?
And which "widely-sold-smartphone-by-Nokia" are you referring to?
just look up pda or smartphone on wikipedia!
PDA:
First one was the Casio PF-3000, the big selling groundbreaker that created the term "PDA" was Apple Newton.
As as far as criteria of PDA, the term was coined for the Apple Newton. So seeing the definition of PDA was made by Apple for the Newton I would say it fits the criteria.
For smartphones everyone considers the IBM Simon the genesis, and the Nokia 9000 the first widely sold one. I had a Nokia 9000 13 years ago. I actually used it on Sprint when Sprint was GSM!
Wikipedia PDA:
"The first PDA is considered to be the CASIO PF-3000 released in May 1983. GO Corp. was also pioneering in the field. The term was first used on January 7, 1992 by Apple Computer CEO John Sculley at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, referring to the Apple Newton. In 1996 Nokia introduced the first mobile phone with full PDA functionality, the 9000 Communicator, which has since grown to become the world's best-selling PDA and which spawned a category of phones called the smartphone."
Wikipedia Smartphone:
The first smartphone was called Simon; it was designed by IBM in 1992 and shown as a concept product[10] that year at COMDEX, the computer industry trade show held in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was released to the public in 1993 and sold by BellSouth. Besides being a mobile phone, it also contained a calendar, address book, world clock, calculator, note pad, e-mail, send and receive fax, and games.
"The Nokia Communicator line was the first of Nokia's smartphones starting with the Nokia 9000, released in 1996. "
No knocks on Pre, but the claim that Palm invented either category is utterly wrong. Palm was a late comer who copied function and mass produced for cheap. That is objective history.
I don't know why no one ever mentions it, but it seems to me that the foray into windows mobile devices was a major factor in causing Palm to lose focus at a crucial time.
A *PALM OS* Treo User
This site is not all about bashing the iPhone. If it was I wouldnt be on it!
Isn't Wall Street one of the biggest failures of the decade?
Are you crazy?! That is horrible! If it was the same as it was 10 years ago, it would still signal a weak economy!
Well it sure is a weak economy right now. And with even more help from the government it will be weaker still.
I wasn't referring to the Dow or the performance of the stock market. I'm referring to the investment banking industry as a whole.
Colligan is not an idiot but he could have hedged his bet by saying "Steve Jobs is a helluva visionary designer."
To become a tool phone for business iPhone still has to solve a number of problems. Problem is, iphone offered opportunities no one imagined: Steveo used glass material-who will go back to plastic after glass? Who's going to go back to less screen, when moer is available? There's a reason more phones are designed to look less like blackberrys and much more like iphone.
For sure these days of small screens are over. Unless keys are virtual, the keyfield must be much smaller realtive to the screen.
Palms stock price way back when isn't due to the smartphone market but their PDAs. They were in practically the only PDA maker which drove them to be a huge success for a long time. Dominating over windows based devices. Their failures began with splitting their company in two with software/OS in one and the device making in the other. This turned them 180 degrees because there was an obvious vast difference in vision or goals between the two separate entities. So beginning right around the time of the tungsten model PDAs software/OS development and updates/upgrades ceased for palm as the software/OS entity went head long into working pointlessly on a new palmOS that to this day still has no support from device makers or developers. I don't even know if they are even still in business at this stage since they appear to have disappeared in the eyes of the public.
Obviously since the launch of the tungsten line of PDAs palm has done everything they can to stay in business while they recover themselves from the split. Which I believe is in many opinions the worst mistake they made followed by the canceled folio they should have thought out more and made it more of a netbook and less of a tied to treo thing. Their best decision was to dump their software/OS ties from the split and bring it back in house. Taking them back to their roots where their true ingenuity, success, etc is at. The pre is reflective of this and will with no doubt turn the tide for palm and bring them out of their rapid decent into the abyss of nothingness.
There is no doubt in my mind that they will sell at least a million units to start and then climb from there. I think the climb in price of the stock for palm and sprint is reflective of a large scale thinking of the same. If you look at market shares between RIM, apple, and palm they are close enough to say that it is likely to see the three of them share equally in the market at first and then from there see who dominates the market. Having been a blackberry user for the last year. Disappointment after disappointment from RIM is going to hurt them. It won't be a mass exodus but they will lose people to the pre just like they did for the iphone. And apple will lose people to the pre too.
These people will be those who were palm customers and others who are looking for that full PDA functionality in a smartphone. The multitasking, power, and functionality that the others lack is what will take customers away from the others and bring them to the pre. RIM has multitasking but using it really cuts the devices down, running more than 2 or 3 apps vastly slows the devices down and eats the battery much more quickly. Palm put a lot of thought and effort in the design of the pre, seeing the faults of their competition and building a platform and device that does away with them. It will be an interesting thing to see what the market shares look like by the end of 2009. Until then I'll be happy seeing the naysayers with their jaws on the floor in disbelief.
..
Sorry for the triple post. I hate my Blackberry.
PALM!!!! You have 24, no 48 hours to ...blah blah...!
Palm deserves to be on the list. A comeback will be great but they deserve it.
My only question is how can they possibly put together a list of the top 10 failures and leave off SCO. Frankly if it was a list of one I would include SCO.
You really nailed it for me on that third effort.
Likely a browser issue. It happens.
Actually, a Blackberry posting via the mobile version of this site. You can't tell if you have posted or not so I kept hitting "send."
Nice.
They do deserver it. And yes, I'm hoping this is their big comeback.
> The point is, let's stop competition bashing. Competition is good for everyone. We all
> benefit!
Amen to that.
Apple first created hand-held computing device called Newton which led to the idea of PDAs by USRobotics, which later came out of 3Com to form Palm. Then Jeff Hawkins, Ed Colligan etc. left Palm to form HandSpring which created the Treo smartphone family. Later Palm bought back HandSpring. Ed Colligan was made president and Hawkins the chief scientist of Palm. Then Hawkins created Foleo which failed as a device, but the concept of foleo, not as a netbook, but as a communication device which always stays connected to the net and gets its information updated from net and also process information available on net, led to the idea of development of WebOS and finally the ideal communication device Pre. Meanwhile Apple created iPhone, which can be characterized as a technological marvel at the time of its release, but iPhone is not the ideal ultimate communication device !
Palm deserves this press. They owned the market, then pissed it away. This will be a business case study for year. They could have easily owned this mobile market, but their incompetent management, short-term greed, not listening to customers, and crappy products (lack of innovation) doomed them. Palm was never as great as they thought they were, hence their downfall. Hell, they didn't even have a truly solid hardware device until HTC made the Treo Pro for them.
Sure, the Pre is nice, but it is, imho, too little too late. It cannot save the company, unless people rebel against the iPhone/iTunes ecosystem, which I don't think they will. (I have purged iTunes from my life...I still have an iPod, but I use the shim for Windows Media to load it like a USB drive. Works great.
I hope they sell millions and save themselves...but until Colligan and the other fools are gone, I doubt it.
Its kind of rude to be calling Colligan a fool. He knows what he is doing.
Rude? I am actually being kind. He and the bunch has really run Palm into the ground. Elevation Partners is basically telling them what to do these days.
I've met and talked with Ed a couple times over the years. He definitely did not "get it" when it comes to Palm, his customers, and the market.
The Pre is a shining beacon of hype...We will see what happens. I really do hope it does well, but one phone does not a company make.
While I agree with what was said about Colligan, "a shining beacon of hype", I think not. Although it has not been released to the public, to call it hype is just as ridiculous as saying it will be the next jesus phone. Those types of comments are what cause people to rebel against apple. Who wants to be "that guy", who essentially is negative about everything new and different. I'll buy a Pre, admittedly somewhat out dislike for "the hype" coming from the apple community, and you know what, if the Palm doesn't live up to expectation, I can get an iphone or an android phone the next go around. So what.
Until Colligan and the fools are gone.
Well, Colligan is still on board but if you check the Palm management team there has been a huge turn over, with many people in from Apple.
I'll say it again, no Iphone bashing intended, but you can't give me an Iphone. It simply is not what I want or need. I've been waiting for a Pre-like phone for a long, long time. I currently have a Blackberry. Tried the Storm out but it was horrible.
Wake up people. This phone is a dud. Why do you think there are no hands-on reviews? Palm knows their OS has problems freezing and the multitask slows considerably with more than 3 applications open.
Check your calendar--the phone hasn't launched yet. Point to a hands-on, significantly pre-launch, phone review out there. That's why most sites have a preview or "first look" or similar and a review later--SOP for just about any company out there is to distribute review units at launch (or shortly before so the reviews come out at launch).
Should Palm have tweaked their policy about not letting people do much with it? Maybe. Without more inside info about why that policy was adopted, though, it's hard to say for sure. While I hope it was a matter of extra caution, we'll have to see.
Do you or have you seen the you tube videos of this thing in action? Do own a pre? Then you cannot say its a dud. I have seen the videos, and watched the screen casts. It is fabulous! And its beautiful! While there will always be a iphone, because there are too many out there. This is a revolutionary os and phone.
Palm will get back on top...they have to.
TeckieGirl40
Of course the videos of it look good. It's a Palm employee controlling the unit! They look for all contingencies when they know they eye of the media is upon them. They would not operate the device such that it would malfunction when there is a camera on it. But they absolutely refuse to let anyone have a unit on their own to review it prior to release. Don't believe the hype, people. The Pre is nothing but a glorified Instinct.
You bettter belive it, remeber this only the 1st product.
Even if this is not a "perfect product" the other ones will be. Because they gonna bring more memory, faster processors, and the WebOs will work like a charm in all ways.
You know if u want to stick with your iBone and die with Pinapple alienation ideas.
I will not ever buy a Pinapple product, because they think they are god and do not respect the user needs. So I hope they stays with they world and their anooying fanboys.
Btw are you worries with Pre sucess? Dont you have many foruns to comment pinnaple news out there?
'I hope Pre I will have a auto delete feature for annoying people'
And for people who don't have an understanding of the English language whose posts have to be deciphered.
Yours is a run on and incomplete sentence.
"...they have to", I can support that!
I was quite a Palm fan "in the day," that is, before the Treo. And before Apple rode the portable music revolution bus, driven by it's iPod marketing monster all the way to iPhone stardom.
I agree that Palm missed the drive to greatness in the cell phone world for whatever internal reasons. However, I think it may be time for the next big thing. Maybe, hopefully, Palm is at the bus stop holding a ticket this time.
Palm certainly deserves the bad press after they abandoned the 700p less than two years after it was released and without ever correcting the many problems. I bought mine when they first came out. The phone was dropped before my two year contract had expired. Very bad business which received very bad press. Palm will be lucky if they get another penny from the customers they screwed...
god damn this site doesnt do weekend updates
i know right. they need to fix that quick. about 2 more days and hopefully we will have a release date. i could care less about the price im getting the phone even if i have to camp out for a day.
You better be first in line. There are only going to be several units available per store at first launch.
The dot-com bubble killed a number of companies and had a ton of companies riding valuations that weren't justified by their product or business plan.
I think it's really convenient that they don't mention companies that were killed by the dot-com bubble bursting, like Pets.COM, or those that got undermined by it, like Sun. There's also the chapter 11 (soon to be 7) SCO, which tried to convert its business model from UNIX software licensing to litigation windfalls.
Perhaps a better title for this article would be "Top 10 Failures That Are At Least Still Around For Us to Kick While They're Down."
Palm failures aside, the Pre and WebOS looks pretty darn good. Better than the iPhone in terms of speed and switching, at least from the demos I have seen.
While I think the iPhone is nice (and the Apple Touch is really nice), I'm still not sold on this "everything to Apple" model. iTunes has become very bloaty. The locking of devices and application is troublesome, to me. I think it will only get worse.
(OT: Say what you want about the Zune, but they have the subscription model down pat (although I think it needs to get to $9.99 or 4.99 a month.))
The real thing is not the cost of the phone - it's the plan! I have 3 Treos, full data on each, and sharing 1500 min. for $80 a month. If I wanted 3 iPhone doing the same, I'm like at what, $220 a month? Over the course of 2 years, that's close to $3,000 difference. For some people, I know that's no big deal, but to me, that's still a spicy meatball.
Competition is good. I 'm glad to see the Pre and WebOS out there.
Wha?
Do these people have stock in Apple or something?
I mean....Palm is still in business......How can they be a Tech Failure compared to other companies?
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