Palm CEO Carl Yankowski Has Resigned

Posted By: Ed Thursday, November 8, 2001 4:40:23 PM

Palm's Chief Executive Officer Carl Yankowski has resigned. Eric Benhamou, Palm chairman of the board, will serve in his place until a permanent successor is named.

"With Palm's transition into two individual businesses almost complete, my role has changed, and it no longer matches my aspirations," Mr. Yankowski said. "I leave confident that our separation and solutions strategies, combined with the new leadership at the helm of both businesses, will result in increased shareholder value. It has been an honor to lead Palm."

Mr. Yankowski did not announce his future plans.

Mr. Yankowski
A search has begun for a new CEO. Mr. Benhamou will chair an Executive Council that will help him lead the company until a new CEO is named. The council is made up of David Nagel, Platform Solutions Group chief executive officer; Todd Bradley, Palm executive vice president and chief operating officer of the Solutions Group; and Judy Bruner, Palm senior vice president and chief financial officer.

Update: Mr. Benhamou told Cnet that they will be looking for someone with more of a hardware focus, as the OS division will be spun off soon.

Mr. Yankowski's resignation follows the toughest year in Palm's history. The pre-announcement of the m500 series last spring cut demand for the V series and hurt their bottom line. At the same time, agreements made earlier to purchase large amounts of components came back to haunt them as demand slowed along with the worsening economy. Both of these left the company will millions of dollars in unsellable inventory that had to be written off.

For the most part, Wall Street has lost faith in the company. The high point for the stock in the last year was $65.75. It closed today at $2.28.

Many people have blamed Mr. Yankowski for Palm's woes and his leaving the company will be viewed as a positive move to these people. The company has been showing signs of turning around, even before this. Palm's revenues were 30% higher last quarter than in the previous one.

In his resignation, Mr. Yankowski referred to Palm's plan to split itself into hardware and software portions, which should be complete by the end of this year.

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Hey Sony, offer to buy Palm!

I.M. Anonymous @ 11/8/2001 5:09:31 PM #
while they're at a mess... they'll listen to terms more, and will be more open-minded.

RE: Hey Sony, offer to buy Palm!
I.M. Anonymous @ 11/8/2001 7:43:59 PM #

If Sony buys Palm, I will swich devices in a hearbeat!

What in the world could Sony do for Palm except slap a Clie' sticker on all the devices and rip out the SD slot and throw in a mem stick slot.



RE: Hey Sony, offer to buy Palm!
I.M. Anonymous @ 11/8/2001 9:53:48 PM #
They would also install an nice, bright, high resolution screen and an MP3 player. And reduce the price by $50.


;-)

RE: Hey Sony, offer to buy Palm!
Scott @ 11/9/2001 9:26:35 AM #
Sony has not demonstrated the competence or desire to provide a solid environment for end-users or developers. They're great at pushing the technology to the limits, but I would not want them in charge of the OS.

Scott

RE: Hey Sony, offer to buy Palm!
I.M. Anonymous @ 11/9/2001 10:11:04 AM #
It is unfortunate to see that some people think that Sony buying Palm would be any kind of positive thing. As another poster implied, I'd switch to a non-Palm OS PDA in a heartbeat. Maybe if Apple bought Palm that would be good (or maybe if some other OS company like Be or QNX), but otherwise I'd really probably rather see Palm stick it out on their own.

RE: Hey Sony, offer to buy Palm!
mikecane @ 11/9/2001 10:35:17 AM #
I must agree that Sony buying Palm would be a grave mistake. Not everyone wants that 320x320 screen. I've done some testing of apps on an m505 and on an N610/710 -- and not everything works well. The 160x160 on the hires CLIE screen is a *emulation*. Images -- such as photos -- actually look "hairier" on the CLIE when displayed at 160x160.

I have a mono S320. I'd like Sony to produce a 160x160 color unit as an upgrade path (that 320x320 mono T415 is a mistake, I think). But I doubt they will.

Of course, all this would be moot if Palm would do what most of us want: go 240x320 with Soft Graffiti.

RE: Hey Sony, offer to buy Palm!
rldunn @ 11/9/2001 10:43:11 AM #
Why would you look at pictures in low-res on a Clie N-series? The pics look outstanding in high-res.

RE: Hey Sony, offer to buy Palm!
mikecane @ 11/9/2001 10:57:01 AM #
Not all photo programs have been modified for hires. And since I have not bought an MStick, it seems I am SOOL for using PGPocket (which would be the only way I could get a hires test pic onto my S320 for beaming and test viewing on a 610/710).

RE: Hey Sony, offer to buy Palm!
I.M. Anonymous @ 11/9/2001 11:00:47 AM #
Looking for new SONY CLIE for 320*480 screen with soft graffiti

RE: Hey Sony, offer to buy Palm!
mikecane @ 11/9/2001 11:28:58 AM #
That'd be great if they could pull it off. Would the next gen Dragonball be able to handle that? (The SuperVz is it called?)

RE: Hey Sony, offer to buy Palm!
rldunn @ 11/9/2001 11:46:22 AM #
Actually, PGPocket works just fine with images in RAM. And it's actually a pretty good image viewing program.

RE: Hey Sony, offer to buy Palm!
mikecane @ 11/9/2001 11:51:19 AM #
As you might or might not know, I was given this S320 as a gift two weeks ago. Have been trying a lot of stuff. From what I (mis?)understood, I thought I needed an MStick to get PG-format pics onto the unit -- because RAM will not accept JPG, etc. I haven't read the PG PDF, and the software itself is awful, so I went and got Album to Go. But now we are well off-topic...

RE: Hey Sony, offer to buy Palm!
I.M. Anonymous @ 11/9/2001 2:34:28 PM #
If Sony bought Palm, any positive hardware thing Sony could do would be offset by them driving the Palm OS into the ground and running other 3rd party Palm OS device makers out of business.

It's about Time!!!

I.M. Anonymous @ 11/8/2001 5:24:12 PM #
It was very obvious that this was going to happen. Carl has done squat for Palm. He had no vision when he spoke, he seemed very off about us users. The m100 series is really the only device that Palm has played around with... which again is the consumer market focus. He left all of us hanging. No Palm IIIc replacement or nothing new. I'm glad he's gone!

RE: It's about Time!!!
I.M. Anonymous @ 11/8/2001 5:37:14 PM #
In case you haven't heard - there is a new device called the m505! It's a color device (ie replacement for pig ugly IIIc). It's also quite revolutionary wrt previous devices (usb, universal connector, 16-bit color, sd expansion... need i go on?)

Also Palm are in the retail business - so they will always produce retail focused devices.

But I do concur that it is about time...

RE: It's about Time!!!
I.M. Anonymous @ 11/8/2001 8:14:18 PM #
you dont need to go on, because your list is about all there is new about the m505

revolutionary?
Kaitou @ 11/9/2001 12:29:12 AM #
"It's also quite revolutionary wrt previous devices (usb, universal connector, 16-bit color, sd expansion... need i go on?)"

USB - didn't handspring have it for a while before?
universal connector - not very revolutionary, just a different shape then the previous ones
16bit color - visor prism
sd expansion - handera (trg pro) had it, so did handpring and the clie
shape? just an update on the V form factor

so what's the revolution?

Universal Connector
bcombee @ 11/9/2001 1:10:23 AM #
Actually, I'd argue that the UC isn't revolutionary, but its a nice piece of evolutionary technology created through the learning done on the original Palm devices.

It combines a 230KBps serial port, a device-side USB port, charging pins, device detection pins, and a compact hardware connector along with a standard set of connecting hardware. Its pretty good engineering, and it should serve Palm devices well for the next few years, at least until they decide they need USB 2.0 or Firewire support.

RE: It's about Time!!!
Scott @ 11/9/2001 9:30:10 AM #
Agreed. This is not a revolutionary device, but it is pretty state of the art. Who else is offering a color device with memory expansion in this form factor?

Scott

RE: It's about Time!!!
I.M. Anonymous @ 11/9/2001 12:27:59 PM #
Ummm...Sony?

Better screen, almost as small.

..

I.M. Anonymous @ 11/8/2001 5:32:04 PM #
HALLELUJA!!!!!!



RE: ..
I.M. Anonymous @ 11/8/2001 8:13:19 PM #
ditto

RE: ..
I.M. Anonymous @ 11/9/2001 2:45:04 AM #
ditto ditto

You are the weakest link, goodbye!

I.M. Anonymous @ 11/8/2001 5:32:34 PM #
Yankowski should have banked when he had the chance.

RE: You are the weakest link, goodbye!
mikecane @ 11/9/2001 10:39:00 AM #
I just had to say that I love the title of that message!

May or may not be a good thing

popko @ 11/8/2001 5:43:00 PM #
This may or may not be a good thing. Lets hope the new CEO will build on what's alrady here and make it better.

RE: May or may not be a good thing
I.M. Anonymous @ 11/8/2001 5:54:04 PM #
It will depend entirely on who they get to replace him.

RE: May or may not be a good thing
I.M. Anonymous @ 11/8/2001 7:30:18 PM #

Hopefully, its not another shoe salesman...


RE: May or may not be a good thing
I.M. Anonymous @ 11/8/2001 8:10:26 PM #
whats already there? they need to bring back Handspring & co. that would save palm. nothing else will.

Shoe salesman?
I.M. Anonymous @ 11/8/2001 8:23:15 PM #
Yep. It's Al Bundy.

RE: May or may not be a good thing
I.M. Anonymous @ 11/8/2001 8:26:48 PM #
Bring back the Handspring team? Nothing else will save them?

Oh, and Handspring is sure doing well as a company.

That's sarcasm, by the way.

I have to explain this, because you evidently aren't too bright. Handspring. That's a riot.

Yes

frauen1 @ 11/8/2001 4:55:13 PM #
The only question for the past several weeks has been when. Someone takes a hit for the stock price, and he's shown some inexperience at this job.

RE: Yes
Spock9 @ 11/9/2001 10:51:04 AM #
I must say, the stock drop had little to do with Carl's management. More to the market itself and the fact that Palm is still a fledgling tech company.

Palm shares jump 23%
I.M. Anonymous @ 11/9/2001 11:19:25 AM #
Palm shares have climbed 53 cents, or about 23%, to $2.80. It was among the most active issues on the Nasdaq Friday morning.

Don't let the door hit you in the ass.

I.M. Anonymous @ 11/8/2001 6:03:25 PM #
So long, Carl, I can't say it's been fun. You'll be lucky to get work as a product manager for Keebler. Moron.



RE: Don't let the door hit you in the ass.
I.M. Anonymous @ 11/8/2001 6:35:59 PM #

To the anonymous dork (pot) calling the kettle black:

Get a life. As for sensitivity: It's a business. And the Keebler Elf ran it into the ground. Yankerkowski is gone because he messed with investors, employees, and customers. I'm all for sensitivity if it doesn't affect others but in the case of the ELF, he messed with everyone. And with the bucks he was making $667K I don't have any sympathy. So, take your new age "beliefs" elsewhere.

TANX.

RE: Don't let the door hit you in the ass.
I.M. Anonymous @ 11/8/2001 6:36:26 PM #
Yeah, Keebler rocks anyways!!

RE: Don't let the door hit you in the ass.
I.M. Anonymous @ 11/8/2001 8:26:39 PM #
Uh-oh... Time to sell my Keebler stock!

RE: Don't let the door hit you in the ass.
I.M. Anonymous @ 11/8/2001 8:36:02 PM #
Keebler? I don't think so... Carl, repeat after me: "Would you like fries with that?"

Right on!!!! Now let's get a real visionary.

I.M. Anonymous @ 11/8/2001 6:29:14 PM #
Perhps we can get lucky and Sony will buy Palm.

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