Confirmed: Palm to Close Retail Stores
PalmInfocenter has confirmed with a company spokesperson that Palm Inc. plans to close its retail stores. The move marks the latest cutback at Palm as it moves to make cost reductions and consolidate the company around its "core business initiatives."
In a statement Palm says they made the decision to close the retail stores to "focus on consolidating more resources behind fewer programs in order to compete more effectively." These same themes were discussed during the last conference call in which Palm's CEO Ed Colligan said the company would be cutting back on anything non-essential throughout the origination.
Palm first entered into the retail environment as part of a pilot program that began in October 2002. The first stores were small kiosks called the palmOne cafe which began in shopping malls on the west coast. Palm later expanded into larger dedicated stores in select US airports.
At last count, Palm has 31 retail locations located in malls and airports nationwide. Its most recent opening was its flagship store in the highly trafficked Rockefeller Center in New York City which opened in December 2006.
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RE: stores closing
There was virtually no stock on display, no more than 30-40 different products offered, if that, including the various types of PDA's and smartphones (for various carriers) and one wall of accessories. The other two walls had decorations on them. There were two or three personnel who were available (but clearly not able to sell anything).
The store 'looked' nice, but didn't have the kind of buzz that a Bose or Apple store has.
And at my local airport (Philadelphia), the Airport Wireless store has hundreds of products for sale, and the store is always packed.
I guess they have a marketing strategy, but I'm not sure the strategy is designed to accomplish anything positive for the company.
Harold
RE: stores closing
Later on they apparently found some people to hire that knew a little bit about the products, but they kept that trademark Palm "disinterested" attitude. They had a small wall of the same stuff you can buy online at their poorly-stocked store, a few devices, and maybe one or two cases that Palm themselves didn't rebrand. Of course EVERYTHING was at full-out MSRP+, with nary a sale ever to be seen.
Stores were boring, boring, boring and basically a useless resource for anyone except a fool on a big expense account. Surprised it took Palm this long to pull the plug.
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**Another vote for a >100MB RAM Treo**
Offices to follow...
It made more sense to have retail stores when they actually had standalone products.
Sigh.
"All opinions posted are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled."
RE: Offices to follow...
What excitement is in there? BT GPS sets, car chargers, overpriced SD memory, or belt cases? Not a lotta draw, so I'm sure they were not making money on the bal sheets.
Pat Horne
Airports too?
New Palm OS device by end 2008
RE: Airports too?
Some airport stores were run and managed by another retail company so they may remain open, but will loose the Palm branding and featured Palm products.
RE: Airports too?
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**Another vote for a >100MB RAM Treo**
RE: Airports too?
Not Apple Stores
If Palm put as much effort into training employees instead of hiring out of Best Buy, they could have given the Palm stores the same type of buzz you only see in Apple stores.
Bottom line, Palm didn't got the final mile to make the Palm stores great. They are paying for it now.
RE: Not Apple Stores
At the rate palm is imploding how long before toilet paper becomes a nonessential item?
RE: Not Apple Stores
All this is just more dismal signs of failing when are we going to get something positive out of Palm?
I am a long term Palm user and the machines suit me very well - generally very productive and useful at a basic level but they never went beyond that level. The world has moved on and its ridiculous that you can't get a Palm out of the box that plays Flash files as standalone or as a web plug in;
You can't have any of the seductive services of the iPhone;
You're stuck with a Mac OS 7/Windows 3.1 interface;
The browser that comes with Palm devices is absolutely chronic and can't deal with Bluetoothed files and many more similar gripes.
Palm were great machines once upon a time, they are still basically functional but look so dated now. I know everyone who visits this site already knows this, but when are we going to get a turnaround? I can't remember the last really positive piece of hardware or software innovation, except possibly the Foleo and that as we all know was killed before it walked.
I'd buy an iPhone but in the UK its cripplingly expensive so I'll carry on with my 650 but there is nothing else worth considering.
I'd love to see Palm do an Apple/Steve Jobs return. I'd love to see some new contemporary looking compelling devices with up to date software. I'd love to see the level of functionality that other people take for granted.
RE: Not Apple Stores
Sure Palm have fiddled while Rome burns. The PDA market is shrinking if not dying, they've lost any semblance of their authority in the smartphone world with a string of good but not innovating 'phones, but then I believe Palm can make a comeback. Ten years ago Apple were in a perilous condition. Enter SJ and they bounce back with some cool new products, mainly pitched at the consumer market (iMac, iBook). This makes me wonder about killing off all the Palm stores: perhaps retaining a few in key locations (major cities, airports etc) would offer a foothold for a comeback range of products rather on relying on 3rd parties. In the meantime, the key stores could at least keep some income coming in and keep a presence in the consumer world.
If Palm can make a push and devise a string of four or five innovative devices possessing killer specs and features (rather than being curiously half-strangled) running a great new OS that doesn't try to be iPhone-esque but instead goes beyond iPhone, then people will part with hard cash.
RE: Not Apple Stores
No. Apple has actual hot *products*. Palm has NOTHING.
Oh, right: Pink Centro, anyone?
RE: Not Apple Stores
But since Palm has sold their soul to the carriers these stores should have been closed, oh, at least a year ago IMO. And when the Fooleo died I knew that was the last remnant of Palm's former glory of operating without influence/pressure from the carriers.
Since Palm refuses to try to be agressive as far as the first 'rogue' smartphone manufacturer who also happens to offer VOIP handsets/PMPs/Internet tablets along with selling unlocked phones for reasonable prices, there's no place-and never really was-for Palm retail stores. If nothing else, Palm should've aped the Apple Genius Bar concept with CONSISTENTLY CAPABLE & KNOWLEDGEABLE store staff and maybe a few store-only specials or maybe a kiosk thing to beam apps to your device, they could have at least carved out a small niche of their own (though some employees really did try--remember the dude at the SFO Palm store that jumped through hoops to get colored 680's for people back in '06?)
Right now Palm might as well try to shore up their last remaining retail B&M partners (Staples? BB? Franklin Covey? Office Max?) and work out SOMETHING so Treo & Centro users who are in a pinch will be guaranteed available replacement stylus/charger/battery/screen protector. Last I checked, the local Verizon store wasn't stocking much in the way of Palm-branded peripherals or Athena connector stuff other than car chargers. I was recently on a trip and my 700p stylus broke and it was not fun trying to dig up a spare at retail (finally got a 3-pack at Staples).
Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P
I didn't even know they had stores
But, regardless, the fact is... how can they have a store when they have so few products?
They need to bring a couple of new devices out, handhelds PDAs... a new Zire type series would be great. A new TX would also be great.
They need to make them cheap (price wise), increase the internal memory to decent sizes (minimal 512Mb-1Gb) and stick to regular SD cards.
If they'd go the PMP way with these, while having all the features of the old school PDAs, they'd have a chance.
The software is already out there, so just making a deal with one of the media player companies, should be good business for both.
Apple would have never been able to pull what they did with the iPhone and iTouch if Palm would have paid attention.
I loved (and still do) my Palm PDAs, but I can see how Palm is dying at this point is they don't smarten up.
The Foleo would have been a step in the right direction, but they missed out on it...again. Why? the two main reasons would have been 1) Overpriced, 2)No touch screen.
Ultraportables are the future. That they called/marketed the Foleo as an "assistant" device was plain stupid.
If they'd bring it out (fixed with touch screen and a 200$ range price), advertise it properly, they might end up doing very well with it.
If they want to wow people, it's easy enough... build it so that it's get a full size expandable keyboard (like the Belkin 3 part pop-up one).
So many things that could be done...
RE: I didn't even know they had stores
Oh, and I develop software for palm. Maybe I'm just uninformed, but...
Nothing to see
I like to puruse the Apple store, if only to see the new products (the only Apple product I own is an iPod). Just in the last year, Apple has introduced more products than Palm has in many years. My communist-era-stlyed PDA just won't cut it.
It's obvious that Palm wants to focus on the smartphone market, and they do make a fair product in that way, but they aren't alone. Unless Palm innovates, it's dead.
"I believe in the atomic bomb."
Blogging at http://agabus.com">Agabus.com.
Palm V > Vx > Clie Peg T615C > T3 > Clie TH55 > T3 > Treo 650 > Treo 700p & T3!
Hasta la vista, all but one Palm Store!
http://www.mobilewhack.com/palm-shuts-down-seven-out-of-eight-retail-stores/
Well, I'll never get to that NYC store now.
No loss. For me at least!
Colligan: RESIGN!
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stores closing
I'll still miss the stores, but with the smartphone focus and big phone carrier stores carrying the various Treos, there wasn't much point to them anymore.