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back to article Palm bets the farm on WebOS

Palm has announced it has enough money to launch the Pre, but with a net loss for the last quarter ($98m) bigger than its revenue ($90.6m), there's not much left in the piggybank. While Palm won’t comment on the company’s burn rate, it’s clear that everything depends on the launch of the new Pre handset - which will come to …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    yeah right...

    my last palm was a lifedrive (an utter failure btw). one former palm geek here is gonna need more convincing than palm will be able to do.

    its not like the iphone is a better pda, it seems like nowadays all pd^H^HSmartphones suck pretty much the same. ahh... how i miss the good old US Robotics days when the devices just worked.

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  2. Bruno Girin
    Go

    Good luck!

    Good luck to Palm, they've produced some great stuff in the past and it's good to see such a company trying to put a good show in such an environment. If they fail to revive their fortunes, they will have done so trying hard with an exciting product rather than slowly disappear.

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  3. Calvin Davidson

    Oh dear...

    I guess they're really up shit-creek, then.

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  4. shane fitzgerald

    Maybe 2 years ago...

    ...but even if its a great device, like it looks to be so far, the economic timing is wrong. Goodbye Palm, may you rest in peace.

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  5. Robert E A Harvey
    Go

    Wishing them well

    my Palm Pilot was the first PDA I ever owned, and the only one with which I was ever totally happy. My employers, of various kinds, have issued various ipaq and other windows based machines which were clumsy, slow, and had poor battery live compared to the old palm V.

    I had a tungsten too, till some lowlife nicked it. I'd have bought a lifebook if it had had vga screen resolution and wifi.

    I suspect that the pre could save the company, but if they tie it to one service provider they will slice the potential market to less than half. I want one, but I want one sim-free and untied please.

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  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Good luck palm!

    I used palm's pdas for many years, and in their prime they made superbly good devices.

    When I came to replace my last one, a great little T3 that was on it's last legs after 4 years odd of loyal duty, it seemed like the devices hadn't moved forward much if at all, and the software hadn't been updated. It seems they really screwed up their software strategy, and lost the way a little on hardware over the years.

    I picked up a first gen iphone instead, and it's given me the same warm glow of quality hardware + software that palm used to. It works the way a phone/pda should do, rather than like a desktop cramped into a case that's too small the way windows mobile does. Plus the updates seem to improve it regularly.

    I'd love to see palm back on form, and I'll seriously consider a pre instead of an iphone next. It'll have to have a good sdk + supported app store though, as I'm doing iphone development lately. Either way, apple need some stiff competition.

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  7. Daniel Silver badge
    Go

    I'll support them

    ... by buying the Pre when it's launched. Palm is one of the few companies who actually listened to what their customers wanted, along with Psion, and Nokia in their early days.

    I started with a IIIc, moved up to a Palm V, a Tungsten, even had a M105 at one point, and was tempted by the Lifedrive but like Robert Harvey I really wanted it to have WiFi.

    I've had WinMo as well, a Jornada 545, iPAQ 5750, a Casio Cassiopiea, to a unit short-lived, overcomplicated, slow, bloated, unusable rubbish - and a few Psions (Revo, Series 3/3a) - which were brilliant.

    Looking forward to supporting Palm again.

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  8. Codge
    Linux

    Good luck to them!

    I bought a second hand Tungsten T5 about 3 years ago.

    What a great little bit of kit! Fast, dead easy to use, loads of good cheap software.

    The battery still lasts about 6 hours, with brightness on full, and connected to a Bluetooth GPS.

    If the Pre is made available over here, untied, at a reasonable price, I'm interested.

    Penguin. Because, well, you know...

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  9. M
    Thumb Up

    @Robert E A Harvey

    I totally agree with the Telco tie in statement. If Palm tie this up with one phone company per country a la iphone they are totally boned.

    I am looking forward to have a play with one as they look great though!

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  10. jai

    a shame

    thing is, if the iPhone wasn't around, i think they'd be alright

    but in these economic times, i'm not sure the market is there to support both the iphone and the pre - and if Palm don't have the cash reserves to push the pre after launch, then i fear it'll be short lived. unfortuantely Apple are sitting on bags of money and will be able to out-market Palm without trouble. the only chance they have is if the Pre is absolutely flawless

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  11. dave

    Hope it's a success

    I'll buy one.

    I'm still using my Sony Clie TH55 - runs palmOS and is the best PDA device I have had. Similar size to an iToucj full colour touchscreen, wifi, camera, headphone socket, syncs with outlook. Use it everyday. It's 5 years older than the iTouch but is essentially the same device - except it has a memorycard slot for expansion.

    Here's hoping that Palm sticks around and forces Apple to keep innovating.

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  12. Steve

    Re: I'll support them

    My Lifedrive has wifi? Only 802.11b, but wifi nonetheless... The whole thing was a bit clunky though but made a good satnav unit..

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  13. ratfox
    Unhappy

    A bit late

    I have nothing against palm (I have a treo), but they should have tried that years before. It's been clear for a while that their stupid palmOS was horrible to program for, and that they should change it...

    Of course, this would have meant the apps painstakingly written for palmOS would have been so much garbage, but maybe they could have kept a few developers at the time. Now they are long gone.

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  14. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    Go Pre Go!

    As an iPhone user I wish Pre all the success it can find.

    It will be good to see improvements in the mobile market and half decent UIs are great starts.

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  15. Michael Kean
    Happy

    Hope they get it right :) T|X getting tired.

    I still daily use a Palm T|X, which is an iphone sized touch screen PDA that had most of the iPhone's functionality long before the iPhone existed. (Except for being a phone.)

    Now many years old, the touch screen keyboard has worn out, but fortunately by switching it to landscape mode, the keyboard is now in a different area; and I reckon I'll get another year or two out of it. I don't mind that they didn't update the software, as there was nothing wrong with the essential PDA software on it - although the email client and browser were certainly unstable and lacklustre.

    Hopefully by then the Palm Pre will be available in Australia, unlocked and ready to go on either 900MHz (Optus / TPG $20 for 5 hours talk plan) or 850MHz (Telstra NextG) $10 incoming calls only plus $10 150MB plan. (Not going to pay $1 per minute for calls, thanks Telstra!)

    Try or die :)

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  16. David Edwards
    Go

    Orange

    I wonder if they will partner with Orange. They did loads with them on the Treo and as O2=iPhone and Voda=Storm then Orange dont have a "exclusive" touch screen smart phone?

    All I ever wanted was a phone in my old Palm TX and I wouldnt have minded mind paying say £300 for an unloked PRE but it was all to late (TX broke) so I bought an iPhone and feel the same way I do about that as I did my first Palm pilots (love).

    Im not sure about the Pre as its not got graffiti and the keyboard seems a strange choice when landscape browsing and typing is all the rage?

    Still good luck to them.

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