/images/Logo.png){kind=logo}
/images/loginout.gif)
/images/rss.gif)
Palm Looks for a Helping Hand
In the past couple of days Palm’s stock (NASDAQ: PALM) has soared from around $3.5 to above $6 (from a 52 week high of $18 by the way) amidst rumors of an imminent buyout. The question in my mind is who wants to pay close to a billion dollars for a company that looses $100M a quarter, has no cash, and it is debt ridden? A fraction of that money will get any company in the smartphone game. Most are already there, arguably with a little excess as I pointed out here.
Granted, their products are good, WebOS is a neat idea, but they have lost the clout they once had. It is sad to see a Palm, in a way the inventor of the category suffer this fate. But hey, in this industry you have to listen to Bob Dylan: “You’d better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone, ’cause the times they are a-changing.”
So what happened to Palm? Execution and focus, lack of them, that is. Back in the late 90′s with an explosive IPO after a spin-off of US Robotics everything looked rosy. But they got greedy instead of focused. But as Michael Douglas said in Wall Street: “Greed is good”. No question but greed has to have a source. And my fellow reader (singular) that has to be your products, not Wall Street itself! It is my theory that Palm, as many other great corporations get too caught up in Wall Street’s metrics, quarters, and their leaders making money off of money alone, that they loose focus on the main thing: Their products. Countless corporations (Google, Apple, Toyota, Ford, etc.) are the opposite: they have focused on creating the best products or services, and Wall Street follows.
Greed is indeed good, but with a focused source.
Enjoy.
Blackberry running out of juice?
Research in Motion, responsible for those of us “thumb-typing” all day long and undoubtedly king of the smart phone market announced quarterly results today. Impressive!! They beat analyst estimates again. Yet, the stock traded at some point after hours almost 10% below yesterday’s close (it has then recovered all but the last 2% or so). Is the Blackberry is running out of juice (I hate puns!) at last?
People buy things because of the things these things do (whaaat?). Applications are what sell devices, not the devices themselves. Sure a sexier iPhone will sell better than an ugly one but first and foremost you have to want to do what the iPhone does before you consider it.
The battle for the Smart Phone is on!
The industry seems desperate to find an alternative to the iPhone so far with no success. Palm (the inventor of the category in a way) launched last week the “pre” a successor to the “pro” (pretty creative naming) that is supposed to be what we’re all been waiting for. Based on what Palm calls WebOS (do not try to pronounce it in Spanish) which is really a WebKit browser on top of a Linux kernel. It is to me just another “clever phone”, pretty well designed, but just a follow up.
/images/logosmall.gif)
Copyright © 2009 -2012 ·