Submission + - The decline and fall of the Palm empire
PetManimal writes: "According to Computerworld, Palm is doomed to decline and failure, thanks to a series of bad business decisions including Palm's acquisition by U.S. Robotics back in 1995 and the musical chairs with PalmSource/PalmOne earlier in this decade. There's also been a lack of innovation — Palm's own corporate timeline has tons of references to innovation and development milestones from 1995 to 2000, but since then it's been mostly boring corporate marketing speak about partnerships, new markets, and product releases. Now the Treo has tons of new competitors, and when the iPhone comes out, it will be game over for Palm, says the Computerworld article: '... Last month, [the] iPhone changed everything. Jobs' Macworld keynote was like a nuclear bomb in the world of smart-phone enthusiasts. The "key influencers" who gave Treos visibility and cachet a year ago — Hollywood types, gadget freaks and absolutely everyone who's anyone in Silicon Valley — have stopped talking about Treos and are simply waiting for the iPhone to come out, at which time they will unceremoniously dump their Treos and embrace the new innovation leader. Meanwhile, it looks like Palm isn't even trying to innovate. [Palm CEO Ed] Colligan said in an interview recently that the company is focused on ease of use, rather than design, and that the company doesn't want to "follow design fads." In other words, Palm is not only failing to set trends, it's not even following them anymore.'"
