RSSPalm confirms it will close its retail stores
By Jacqueline Emigh | Published January 24, 2008, 4:19 PM
Although the long-time smartphone maker will "continue to focus around core business initiatives," it's still unknown whether these initiatives will include a new home-grown, Linux-based version of the Palm OS.
A Palm spokesperson today confirmed to BetaNews that the beleaguered smart phone manufacturer and marketer now intends to shut down all of its retail stores.
In response to our inquiry, Yvette Gross-Price, a long-time Palm spokesperson, sent the following "approved" written statement from Palm:
"We continue to focus our company around core business initiatives and are consolidating more resources behind fewer programs in order to compete most effectively and build world-class, category-defining solutions. We have therefore made the decision to close our retail stores."
Over the past week or so, conflicting rumors have been floating around about Palm, ranging from impending retail store closings to plans by Palm to continue building a previously talked about Linux-based version of the Palm OS, originally slated for delivery in 2009.
Palm did not respond today to a request from BetaNews for comment about the new operating environment, and no further information was immediately forthcoming, either, about Palm's retail closings and other future intentions.
Although it was at one time the kingpin of the handheld device industry, Palm has been beset in recent years by increasingly strong competition from cell phone manufacturers on the hardware side and Microsoft's Windows Mobile OS on the software side.
Palm officials have been touting a new homegrown Linux environment, seen as merging Palm OS support into the Linux kernel, at trade shows over the past year. It's been widely hoped by Linux fans that this new OS -- if it happens -- will help to set Palm free of the need to run Windows software on its own hardware.
......There are Palm stores?
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|This is no loss. This company hasn't been a real innovator in over ten years. They are no longer relevent in the marketplace. I predict they will either be bought and absorbed by a competitor or be out of business all together in a few years. They went from a market leader to an also ran very quickly. Sad.
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|I don't even know they have store. I live in Manhattan too, but have never see a Palm store.
Are they going to dump their OS and go WM on all their line?
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|yeah ive seen it i think by roccafeller ceter.
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|They had stores?
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|I have a Palm 755p and love it. When I am in manhattan, I see the Palm store but have no reason to go in. Plus, if I didnt have one why would I go there instead of the cellular provider? A non-treo palm is worthless!
Its a pointles store and a bad idea.
Palm is full of bad ideas its amazing to me that people making so much money can churn out such garbage.
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|Palm..... LOL!
Why not try to revive Amiga, Prodigy, and the Apple IIe. Palm is headed that way and has been for a long time.
Traditional PDAs are being replaced by smart phones like the iPhone, Blackjack, and a bunch of others.
Palm stores, Gateway Country, and a number of other bad ideas. At least the Apple stores are still a hangout for the sheep and wannabes. The Sony stores carry a full line of products and not just a handful of different items like Palm and Apple.
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|i like to go into the Apple store and put porn on the laptops and walk away. its funny.
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|I had a friend that used to go into Radio Shack stores and change the screen savers to say RADIO SHACK SUCKS and then password protect the computers. Funny stuff that.
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|I'm guilty of the same skullduggery. I used go to into the system directories of the demo computers and delete critical files, forcing a reformat in most cases.
I also know how to recalibrate the touch screens on the portable GPS systems so your finger never hits the right button. I change the language to Portugese before I do this so they can never change it back. One, they cant read the language, and two, you can't press any buttons to fix it.
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|uh, palm has been making smartphones since day one, they pretty much started the trend using their own OS.
The problem is nobody needs their hardware or their OS anymore. They simply can't compete and the world has moved on without them.
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|In 1996-1997 I went to various retail stores and bought a computer, ghosted them, and returned them on the 29th day for the same machine or better somewhere else. repeat. eventually they caught on and I think I'm part of the reason why it's very difficult to return anything to retail more than a few weeks...
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|Actually if Steve would go 'one more thing' at the next MacWorld and revive the Apple II I bet they'd sell millions right away...
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|AmigaOS is quite alive and there is also new hardware for it.
Palm were quite late in seeing the writing on the wall about single function devices. Their founder had already started another company, HandSpring, and they'd worked with someone to create a mobile phone add-on until the Treo line.
There isn't much wrong with PalmOS but they've contiuously fumbled upgrading it.
Besides that, where were these stores? Sony stores? They carry a full line of inadequate products.
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