Settlement Over Defective Palm m Series Handhelds

I posted about this last month on the forums. Slashdot was slow. All the emails were sent out on May 19. Revenge of the Palm Users!

Looks like the going rate on e-bay is $6.00 for a m125. Of course what are they going to replace it with, a Zire 31?

"Many men stumble across the truth, but most manage to pick themselves up
and continue as if nothing had happened."
- Winston Churchill

Hey!

What about us Canadians? I have an m105 with the battery problem and an m100 with a horrible digitizer...

Who wants to send them in for me?

:)

I can prove I lose the data, just replace the batteries. Duh!

But the digitizer problem is worse, it makes the PDA unuseable..those should be replaced!!!!!!!!!

Why don't we just over throw PalmOne and take over! Or maybe even riot infront of PalmOne headquarters. If I lived by it I would join in.

>Everyday, I read comments from antagonistic individuals who think nothing of trying to bring a company down that has provided a helluva lot of commerce and clearly changed the computing world forever in a positive way.

Are you talking about all of the MSFT Bashers?

Actually, I have provided quite a few news items to PIC over the years. Just because my name doesn't get attached to them doesn't mean I didn't provide it. And I have posted to the comments, although trolls have been degrading this site enough that I post most often elsewhere now.

The point she is trying to make is valid. No one is looking for "blind apologist cheerleading". Gekko's comment, while cute and mildly amusing, is what she is referring to. At one time this was an interesting forum to discuss the OS and hardware, however, that is no longer the case. Reading post's from many who frequent this site makes it seem as though Palm is about to go out of business. Clearly, Palm has problems but certainly not to the extent one reads about at PIC. No, people are not looking for "blind apologist cheerleading", however they should not be forced to tolerate the infantile, uniformed rantings of Mike Cane, The Voice of Doubt and other like them.

What????

I could'nt agree with you more!

I'm certainly not a PPC apologist, but I have to wonder if a post-Palm world would really be all that bad. The PPC vendors will still competitively try to 1-up each other. And I still think MS will innovate and add power to their devices in an attempt to take a bite out of the promising multimedia/mp3 player market.

Nostalgia is a powerful thing, but I don't envision handheld development in the broadest sense slowing down that much regardless of what happens to Palm. As much as many of us hate MS, I don't think it's fair to say PC development slowed that much in the 90's, when Windows was the only 'real' player.

Everyday, I read comments from antagonistic individuals who think nothing of trying to bring a company down that has provided a helluva lot of commerce and clearly changed the computing world forever in a positive way. I am so tired of reading tirades from "The Voice of Doubt", "mikecane" and others that have decided to use PIC as a troll palace.

For Pete's sake, knock it off! PIC (and other PalmOS related sites now defunct) used to be a place for true information exchange, not a troll paradise.

Amen, Sister! Microsoft has done more to advance computing than any other company and instead of blind adulation and praise, all we hear is constructive criticism. At least they listen to that criticism and try to improve their products, though.

Put the hate on the haters, Renée. You GO, Girl!

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Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
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The Palm Economy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

Actually, I was a member long before that. Ask Ryan. :-)

And I *have* provided numerous posts that usually appear in the form of NEWS that you like to rant about, no matter what the news is. I have made numerous posts. And so what if your nick is your real name? So is mine.

>>>Actually, I was a member long before that. Ask Ryan. :-)

Fight your our damn battles, sissy.

>>>And I *have* provided numerous posts that usually appear in the form of NEWS that you like to rant about, no matter what the news is. I have made numerous posts. And so what if your nick is your real name? So is mine.

And apparently not good enough for you to have used it before this little tearfest. Does ANYONE here recognize your name? N and O.

>>>Oh, yeah, thanks for reminding me to update my profile.

Oh shut and stand still. Your head keeps moving out my crosshairs. Can you get a bigger head, maybe?

P.S. Even *W*I*T*H* Palm's competition, Microsoft has failed to design an operating system that outdoes PalmOS in the areas that PalmOS does best. No doubt PocketPC has far surpassed PalmOS in many cool gee-whiz areas, and also in some more practical ones. But the darn things, as impressive as they may be still can't be trusted to replace a PalmOS as PDA, for crying out loud!

Thats rather non-specific opinion. What exactly do you find deficient (and if alarms, well.... you win :) )

Surur

Trust me I do not encourage or keep trolls around for any revenue based reason. I too am disappointed at the constant negativity some constantly throw out there. I am taking a tougher stance on moderating and am working on some ideas for a better comment system. While something like slashcode would be nice, It would most likely mean that I'd have to abandon 6 years of news/articles/comments, something I do not want to resort to. In the meantime, I am working on some ideas and will be moderating posts much more closely.

Yeah. What Gekko said.

And as for the whiiiiners here, where are YOUR brilliant posts to dazzle all of us with your wisdom, insight, and knowledge of Palm, PalmSource, the OS or its apps? Oh, thats right: there are NONE!

Next!

> I believe Palm is besieged. What would you call being surrounded by tens of OEM's gunning for your customers, who have better devices at lower prices.

What you SAY you believe is irrelevant.

You refer to tens of OEMs, but apart from HP and Dell there is not one of them who offers a broad range of handheld units or who otherwise looks like a real competitor. There are a number of specialist players, of course, (just as there are on the Palm side eg Garmin & Tapwave). Further, we have seen OEMs come and go from this market for a number of years now. They enter the market with a blaze of publicity and then then disappear into the sunset a year or two later having lost a lot of money in the meantime). I invite you to compare today's list of M$ flunkies with say a list of 3 years ago. How many of them have made a real impact?

HP's market share is being eroded by Dell. That's largely because of Dell's pricing policy. But it's also due to Dell's habit of giving PDAs (as 'gifts') to IT managers when trying to sell other equipment to them. (I have seen this at first hand.) So HP is facing problems in terms of pricing pressure and fall in market share generally. This is problem for the bottom line. To maintain their market share, HP need to commit to upgrading their range regularly. This is a problem for the bottom line.

Sure HP are a big company who can absord the losses, but they have a lot of other commitments too. They also have a new CEO, who has a reputation as a 'cost-cutter' from his NCR days.

Worse still, HP are being hounded by Wall Street analysts about poor performance, insufficient profits, etc - they are all advocating a reduction in the number of HP's divisions, so as to focus the company on more profitable business lines. If it was up to the analysts, HP would dump just about every division apart from the printers/supplies business.

I don't know HP's new CEO, but I do know one of the NCR management team. Based on what I have been told, his reputation as a cost-cutter is well deserved. His modus operandi is sell fixed assets (land, buildings, etc), cut back on R&D (especially in 'non-core' businesses) and freeze new hiring and salary rises. Surplus funds will be used mostly to buy-back shares or repay debt, rather than being deployed in the business. If HP's board will will let him, he will try to sell or downsize the less profitable parts of the HP business.

Where does this leave HP's handheld division? Well, they have falling market share and pricing pressure, a relatively big R&D budget and a new CEO who is looking for a 'quick fix' to the financial side of the business. Because the handheld business is such a small part of HP, they might escape with just a reduction in their cost overheads, while the CEO focuses on culling the bigger divisions. Alternatively, the new CEO might decide to slash the development budget for the iPAQ division and shift the engineers into other parts of the HP empire.

What does this all mean? Try putting 2 and 2 together.

Your assertion that the M$ lackeys offer better devices at better prices is amusing.

You are making the common mistake of confusing specifications with capabilities. For instance, the Axim X50v comes with a fast processor, which looks better on paper than anything Palm offers. Fine, but Axim needs an enormous processor just to run a complex operating system and the VGA screen at acceptable level. (This, of course, causes problems in terms of battery life.) I advise you to forget about the specifications you see in the advertising literature and look to how the devices perform under real conditions.

As to better prices, I invite you to do a comparison - you will see that the OEMs you refer to typically offer their units at about $150-$200 more than the roughly equivalent palmpilots.

As for your sad devotion to the M$ cause - well, all I can say is: None are so blind as those who are paid not to see.

svrontis: So basically you are saying HP may exit the PDA market, and this will leave more breathing space for Palm? You are making the mistake of thinking HP is what PPC's are all about. They are less than a 1/3 of the device market, and there are many other OEM's who will step up to the plate. Also, with WM5, the role of PDA's in managing workers will just increase. I doubt HP will want to cede this market to an improved blackberry.

Either way, regarding OEM's, there is HP, Dell, Asus, Toshiba is still around, Mitac, Fujitsu Siemens and thats not counting the phone edition devices distributes by vodaphone, Orange and t-mobile.

Lastly, speculation is fine, but the trend is clear. Palm's non-phone devices are being phased out.

Surur