Palm to become palmOne

Steve · 08-18-2003, 12:09 AM

Palm, Inc. announced today that it plans to split into three companies later this year. This marks the latest chapter in Palm's volatile history, which has been as much a tale of modern-day business as modern-day technology.

Read about it at http://www.brighthand.com/article/Inside_the_Palm_Split

treo007 · 08-18-2003, 12:42 AM

Is there some kind of regulation prohibiting the hardware group from calling themselves just Palm?

Steve · 08-18-2003, 12:45 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by treo007
Is there some kind of regulation prohibiting the hardware group from calling themselves just Palm?

No.

livefaith · 08-18-2003, 02:17 AM

Decent color refresh, retained original name and even kept the font nearly the same. Not bad for hanging on to this "cash cow" of a name. If you just have to change, then this aint-2-bad. Only problem will be getting that whole name in that little round button on the T3! :-)

More news ...

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/030818/sfm039_1.html

http://biz.yahoo.com/rc/030817/tech_palm_1.html

thegreatkevinski · 08-18-2003, 03:11 AM

Boy, that "round robin" story is certainly a mess! All that work and they all wind up back in the same joint, and Handspring is history. This should make for some good reading. Anyone writing a book on this saga yet?

treo007 · 08-18-2003, 03:18 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Steve Bush
No.

Good, I wanted to make for sure before I asked: what the hell are they doing?

To most, all PDAs are "Palms". That's the kind of brand recognition few companies in the world have. Now they want to call their hardware group "Palm One"??? The average consumer doesn't care and might just get confused. Ridiculous....

I love what Palm's done over the last year or so in terms of revamping its product line, but my god...tell the marketing people to relax and quit trying to remake everything. If you're going to change the name, call it Palm Pilot.

imported_Phoenix · 08-18-2003, 03:42 AM

Three entities, huh? Wow. How utterly confusing. While they're at it, why don't they just break up into seven parts - one for each day of the week? In a year or two, no one will know what the heck is going on.

Not to pick on Palm, but watching this company has been one sad event after another. Like watching a drowning person try to make or claim everything is better simply because they have one more finger above the water.

What a mess.

gfunkmagic · 08-18-2003, 04:31 AM

Quote:

The third entity, a holding company owned 55% by PalmSource and 45% by palmOne, would own the Palm name and trademark.

2 Main Questions:

What is the name of this holding company? And secondly, does this holding company have any other function besides owning the Palm name and trademark?

This seems like an inuvative way for both the PalmSource and palmOne to share in the valuble Palm name. But I wonder how the other PalmOS lisencees feel about this situation? Wouldn't the other lisencees also want to have a stake in the tertiary holding comapany as well? Hmm...

gfunkmagic · 08-18-2003, 04:56 AM

Okay... I found the answer to my first question: the holding compnay will be simply called "Palm Trademark Holding Company, LLC"...

Twin_Pixel · 08-18-2003, 05:02 AM

I thought it changed its name because of the association with PalmSource, which became unfair against other licensees like Sony and Samsung.

Now, palmOne is quite similar to both Palm and PalmSource. So... Why bother with this minor change?