palmOne Name Change Coming July 14th
palmOne will officially change its company name back to Palm on July 14th. the company announced today. palmOne recently acquired the rights to the brand name Palm from PalmSource in a $30 million dollar deal.
The company's Nasdaq ticker will change from PLMO to PALM. A new logo and design treatment will be unveiled later this summer.
"The letters P-A-L-M reflect a prized brand with significant customer awareness and earned loyalty," said Ed Colligan, palmOne president and chief executive officer. "Innovation, power, ease of use, and elegance all are attributes of the brand, and we intend to invest to turn what is a strong name today into a household word synonymous with leadership in mobile computing."
As part of the agreement, palmOne has granted PalmSource and its licensees a four-year transition period to move away from the Palm trademarks.
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RE: Wow... that is soon!
Pat Horne; www.churchoflivingfaith.com
RE: Wow... that is soon!
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David
Palm's new logo is a HIDEOUS orange lollipop!
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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
Lollipop, lollipop
Wait!
It's TWO disgusting things in one.
What, with $30M on the line, they couldn't afford a DESIGNER?
Hint: Use the ORIGINAL circle logo!
RE: Wow... that is soon!
Also, look here
http://www.palm.com/us/products/
WHY can they not go ahead and clear out the deadwood on their products page? The Zire 21, T|E, and T|C remain still brandishing the PREVIOUS "Palm" logo! Or maybe this is intentional..."old" product with "new yet old" branding?
On a semi-related note, Sunnyvale seems to be where the former tech giants usually go to die, isn't it? (shades of the dying days of Atari Corp--nearly 10 years ago)
http://www.atari-explorer.com/history/history12.html
Might the combination of PalmSource's fading away, new logo/name, corporate HQ relocation etc. be too much for Palm to handle all at once? How will this impact the fall release schedule?
Where will they stop?
They can be serious about their brand name...
But on the other hand you can fix a mistake only by making another one...
Let's hope we will not hear about "palmTwo" in a year from now...
RE: Where will they stop?
A cool Palm 2 logo with a neat little slogan ... "PalmTwo. Powered by Grafitti 2".
... can't wait to hear Cane blow a gasket on that one! :-O
Pat Horne; www.churchoflivingfaith.com
RE: Where will they stop?
"Hambug or Ba-gug, that's me.!"
RE: New colors too?
RE: New colors too?
When it's so blatently apparent that the intelligencia at Palm/One is putting so much attention on trivial things such as this, it's clear how they "missed" the "little" problem with the 40% loss of memory in the original Treo 650 design. "...Oh, if only we could ship these Treos without that nasty "one" suffix after our name - THEN the "power users" would love us...
\end rant... back to datamangler fixing....
I am no longer puzzled as to why Wince/Pocket PC has been able to sell so many units, in spite of it's (still) usability deficit compared to Palm. Thirty Million Dollars on a
New Logo?
http://www.palminfocenter.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=28052
Pat Horne; www.churchoflivingfaith.com
RE: New Logo?
RE: New Logo? Please stop the insanity!
EXACTLY.
But of course instead they'll spend 5,000 man-hours and then come up with this masterpiece:
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm Economy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
SCOOP! Palm's new logo! Palminfocenter exclusive.
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Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm Economy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: New Logo?
Let's all celebrate the merger and Bastille Day!
[signature0]
the secret to enjoying your job is to have a hobby that's even worse
[/signature0]
[signature1]
My PDAs: Visor --> Visor Neo (blue) --> Zire 71 --> Tungsten T3 (with 5 of 6 screws still remaining) --> zodiac 2?
[/signature1]
Money well spent....
Ok, I'm resentful, but how much would it have cost to have actually built the Treo 650 properly from the beginning, ie: 64MB+ RAM, NVFS patched properly, etc....?
This stupid dotcom mentality of corporate "image" being more important than common sense seems to be alive and well in the boardrooms of PalmOne/Palm. At least if they destroy the company with these priorities the obituaries will have 3 less letters to print.
RE: Money well spent....
What's thirty million bones (plus a good portion of that on top to change signage, business cards, advertising, etc.) when it buys such a radically different name and identity such as this?
>PalmOne - "what's that - a dessert topping? I'm so confused!"
>Palm - "Oh, I just love their handhelds!! I'll buy 4!!"
Maybe the ink savings on those 3 letters alone will make up the tens of millions this cost. Hell, maybe they'll even splurge and put Loctite in the screws of the next sliding Tungsten model rather than try charging their customers $125 apiece to replace faultily assembled devices (http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_story.asp?ID=6351).
For the RETAIL price of Three Hundred THOUSAND original Zires (!!) PalmOne will finally be a "player" in the Palm Economy, and people will no longer look at the name "PalmOne" and wonder exactly WHAT operating system their devices use.
Now that we know how much money they have to blow, the next Treo had better have some real memory and actually be tested thoroughly! They have no excuses now.
RE: Money well spent.... NOT!
Ok, I'm resentful, but how much would it have cost to have actually built the Treo 650 properly from the beginning, ie: 64MB+ RAM, NVFS patched properly, etc....?
This stupid dotcom mentality of corporate "image" being more important than common sense seems to be alive and well in the boardrooms of PalmOne/Palm. At least if they destroy the company with these priorities the obituaries will have 3 less letters to print.
Well said, joad. Only problem is that Palm doesn't really care about quality, and the payment appears to have more to do with corporate smoke and mirrors/shell game nonsense rather than a legitimate desire to regain a familiar brand name. I've posted elsewhere why some of us feel this is happening:
http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7920#109292
Corporate greed can be quite shocking to people that actually WORK for a living.
Going back to your point, say Palm produces 2 million Treo 650. That $30 million would mean $15/Treo of extra memory, better quality components, applications, etc. A LOT of improvements could have been made - in fact, most of the Treo 650's major deficiencies could have been corrected by those extra $15. I wonder how many more sales Palm could have generated by offering a well-built, bug-free 64 or 128 MB Treo 650. License BackupMan and TealLock for $1 per copy. The extra RAM would probably cost $5 - 10. Better speaker - $2. They probably could have called it the Fart 650 and people still would have lined up to buy a Treo with those improvements. (Even after being a victim/early adopter of the Treo 600, I would have been at the front of the line, checkbook in hand for a high quality Treo 650.) Assuming $100 profit per Treo 650, if these improvements attracted an additional 20% of customers, Palm would come out ahead. Not to mention the PR juggernaut they could have created by having a smartphone that was leagues ahead of the competition. As was the case with the Palm V, the Treo 650 could have become a cultural icon and THE must have accessory for executives and sales figures could have snowballed. Instead, Palm scrimped on quality, bungled yet another product introduction and failed to leverage the Treo 650's potential as a "push" email device. The fact that despite all these problems Palm now derives most of its profits from the Treo 650 underscores how big a mistake it was to not ensure the device was as good as it could be.
Oh well.
TVoR
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm Economy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
Money well spent....Conspiracy theory
Now they have no problem, and can continue using the Palm powered brand with any OS they choose.
I like conspiracy theories... ;)
Surur
RE: Money well spent....
Perhaps palmone was afraid that if PSRC went under or was taken over, another company could steal PSRC's portion of the "palm" name which could cause palmone some stress. so - palmone said to themeslves we better "take action" and secure 100% of the palm name/brand before PSRC goes tits-up. Also, PSRC is poorer than a beggar on the street right now - they desperately needed the cash infusion. They should send Nagel, McVeigh, Mace et al on the streets of Sunnyvale right now with tin cups in hand begging for spare change. The Keystone Cops strike again. Friggin losers. If I was Chairman of PSRC right now I'd fire EVERYBODY right now. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. Then I'd hire away a top dog from Oracle or MSFT or some other top 5 software company and let he/she rebuild the organization from scratch. They really need to clean house - all these ex-Apple guys are like a cancer. They will continue to metastasize until there is nothing left. You have to cut out the cancer now - before it's too late - and unfortunately, it may already be too late.
RE: Money well spent.... Definitely!
You're right. I just came back from Staples and with all the Handspring Visors, Sony CLIEs, HandEra 330s, Kyocera smartphones and AlphaSmart Danas they had on display I could barely find any of pa1mOne's models. Thank God I kept searching though - eventually I found a dusty Palm IIIx near the back of the display. Whew!
By the way, does ANYONE buying a Treo 650 actually CARE it's a "pa1mOne" Treo 650? Seems to me that Treo is now the more recognizable name for Palm's smartphones. And now that Palm is focusing primarily on smartphones + makes most of its profit from smartphones, doesn't it seem straaaaaange that they would actually even care about a name that matters mainly in the (imploding) traditional PDA market? Hmmmmmmm...Veeeeeery interesting... [strokes chin thoughtfully]
What's thirty million bones (plus a good portion of that on top to change signage, business cards, advertising, etc.) when it buys such a radically different name and identity such as this?
>PalmOne - "what's that - a dessert topping? I'm so confused!"
>Palm - "Oh, I just love their handhelds!! I'll buy 4!!"
Maybe the ink savings on those 3 letters alone will make up the tens of millions this cost. Hell, maybe they'll even splurge and put Loctite in the screws of the next sliding Tungsten model rather than try charging their customers $125 apiece to replace faultily assembled devices (http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_story.asp?ID=6351).
I'd forgotten about the actual expense of changing logos. That will probably easily burn up another $5 million or so. How dare you complain about the Tungsten screws? First of all, it would have cost almost 1 cent per PDA to put Loctite on the screws. Secondly, the screws are specially designed "blowoff valve screws" - they fall off when any OS instability is sensed, thus relieving dangerous pressure within the PDA and avoiding the risk of "ETDS" (Exploding Tungsten Device Syndrome). Get down on your knees and thank God the Palm engineers (probably some rocket science types they got from the buyout of Be) included these "safety screws" for the protection of you and your loved ones!
For the RETAIL price of Three Hundred THOUSAND original Zires (!!) PalmOne will finally be a "player" in the Palm Economy, and people will no longer look at the name "PalmOne" and wonder exactly WHAT operating system their devices use.
Now that we know how much money they have to blow, the next Treo had better have some real memory and actually be tested thoroughly! They have no excuses now.
Come on now. This is the company that wrote off $300 million in unsold inventory http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_story.asp?ID=1941 I still search the fields behind Palm's old HQ with a metal detector every weekend hoping to find where they buried 1,000,000 Palm m505 and Vx! ;-O $30 million is chump change for Palm!
All pA1m0n3 had to do was capitalize the P and then make the "one" part REALLY, REALLY small and then pocket the $30,000,000. Who'd know the difference? After all, they're gonna get the name back in a few months when they buy PalmSource anyway, so what's the rush? Could it be they WANTED to blow some more of their investors' money and at the same time drive down the price of PalmSource? Hmmmmm...
TVoR
(Of course, all the above is pure speculation. Only a dozen or so Palm execs like Colligan, Nagel and Mace know the real scoop. No doubt some people may get charged if there has been any illegal activity going on. I wonder what will happen if there's a Deepthroat inside PalmSource...)
dianne.hackborn@palmsource.com
michael.mace@palmsource.com
george.hoffman@palmsource.com
O where, O where has my little Cobalt gone?
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm Economy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: Money well spent....
That's nothing compared to what M$ has spent on trying to compete with this little company.
RE: Money well spent....
RE: Money well spent....
As least when you get it Mike Cane/prison-style you don't have to swallow. A lot less messy and no yucky aftertaste. I hope you thanked Palm and made breakfast for the Colligan/Nagel gangbang crew in the morning.
TVoR
------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------
The Palm Economy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038
RE: Money well spent....
Yeah, but it's only 1.25mil per bit.
So here's my question... what happens to the Palm OS?
Now since PalmSource won't be a "Palm" company anymore it's reasonable to suggest that they might not call the new OS, "Palm OS". Moreover since the new OS will have little to do with the old OS save for a (possibly) familiar interface it's likely that the Palm OS, as we knew it, will go extinct. Add to the mix that PalmOne/Palm is rumored to develop a Windows Mobile line of Treos and you've got one strange fiscal year.
To me this move seems like Palm/PalmOne is either shedding the Palm OS *or* perhaps they also landed the rights to the classic line of the Palm OS and are moving development back in-house.
Either way it's a branding nightmare. We could potentially have a situation where a Palm handheld can't run the Palm OS yet a non-Palm handheld running the new, yet-to-be named OS, can run some of the Palm OS library through emulation.
It's going to be one strange fiscal year...
RE: So here's my question... what happens to the Palm OS?
Palm can also take the Lifedrive and now add Windows Media and have what Microsoft legally can't have... A 'Palm PC'
Success of PalmOne/Palm Branding
and the scary thing is this company is actually trying to sell the things!
WTF is wrong with them, can't they read what's printed on the box?!
It seems that PalmOne have piddled away $30,000,000 for jack.
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"What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight � it�s the size of the fight in the dog" - Dwight D. Eisenhower
RE: Success of PalmOne/Palm Branding
Their advertising agency must be rolling in dough with all this goofing around with names and logos... No wonder the Treo "family" consists thusfar of exactly 2 orphans that can't even share the same crib... Too busy with "image" to get to work on anything else.
But still we buy.
Will they rebrand current devices?
RE: Will they rebrand current devices?
It will included the new Palm logo sticker, OS patches, & replacement screws. Step back Dell!
Pat Horne; www.churchoflivingfaith.com
RE: Will they rebrand current devices?
MAYBE the Treos will get new cardboard boxes but everything else will eventually be replaced within a year's time so it'll just be a slow & gradual process like the first namechange/rebranding process was.
P1 might "unleash" three or four lightly upgraded models (think: new Zires, T7, 6gb LD) this fall to coincide with the rebranding process and also as part of a general pruning of the lineup.
Look for Palm to hit each of the major $100 pricepoints this fall with their non-Treo devices: $100 (Zire 31 or 32), $200 (T|E2), $300 (Zire 72/73), $400 (T7), $500 (LD/LD2). I'd even wager that the LD is the "final" PalmOne device.
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Wow... that is soon!