After Palm reported to Wall Street that sales performance of their new webOS-based smartphones was far below original expectations, CEO Jon Rubinstein sent an email to all Palm employees explaining in more detail the reasons for their disappointing financial results and the steps the company is taking to right the ship. Below is the text of the actual memo as posted by the Wall Street Journal:

Team,

This morning we announced preliminary results for our 2010 third quarter. Since the quarter has not yet closed, it is too soon to offer exact numbers, but we stated that we expect to report revenues for Q3 between $300 and $320 million. We also announced that we expect our revenue for this fiscal year to fall below the guidance we gave to Wall Street, which ranged from $1.6 to $1.8 billion. As we mentioned in our press release, our softer than expected performance is due to slower than expected customer adoption of our products, which in turn has prompted our U.S. carrier partners to put additional orders on hold for the time being. On a positive note, we expect to exit the quarter with over $500 million in cash on our balance sheet. We’re scheduled to announce our full financial results in March.

I realize this news is difficult to swallow. We made this announcement today to prevent a surprise for Wall Street when we announce quarterly earnings in March. In the meantime, the entire executive team has been working extremely hard to improve product performance, and have implemented a number of initiatives to increase awareness and drive sales.

Dave Whalen and I just returned from a very successful meeting with Verizon Wireless, where they acknowledged that their execution of our launch was below expectations and recommitted to working with us to improve sales. To accelerate sales, we initiated Project JumpStart nearly three weeks ago. Since then, nearly two hundred Palm Brand Ambassadors, supplemented by Palm employees from Sunnyvale, have been training Verizon sales reps across the U.S. on our products. Early results from the stores have already shown improvement on product knowledge and sales week over week. You may have also seen a growing number of Palm ads on billboards, bus shelters, buses, and subway stations—all getting the word out about Palm.

All of these efforts are examples of how we are working to accelerate adoption and grow distribution of webOS. In the next few weeks, your management will work with you to make sure your priorities are laser-focused, primarily on helping to increase sales, improve product quality and differentiate the Palm product experience.

Our goals are taking longer than expected to achieve, but I am still confident that our talented team has what it takes to get the job done.

We’ll schedule an all-hands meeting after our earnings announcement in March, and I’ll be happy to answer your questions.

Go team!!!

jon

Palm has bet it all on the success of webOS and their Palm Pre and Pixi, recently adding Verizon and, hopefully soon, AT&T. Sales on both Sprint and Verizon networks has been disappointing and they will be competing with the likes of the iPhone on AT&T’s network, so hopefully they can pull a rabbit out of their hat and once again become a major player in an already crowded field of smartphones. Do you think Rubinstein’s email inspires confidence?

source: WSJ

At first you may have waited for the Palm Pre and Pixi to be available on Verizon before you pulled the trigger. Then, maybe you decided to wait a little longer in hopes of a price drop. If you have had the patience of Job, then you may want to head over to Best Buy for a pretty good deal on Verizon’s two new webOS-based handsets.

After instant rebates and a 2-year contract with Verizon, you can now pick up the Palm Pre Plus for only $99.99 or the Pixi Plus for the low, low price of free. If that’s the deal you’ve been waiting for, then Best Buy is the place to get it. This offer is likely for a limited time so it’s time to jump off the fence! Will it be a Pre Plus or a Pixi Plus for you?

source: mypre

According to Gartner and their newly-released report of annual worldwide smartphone sales, webOS handsets (Palm) own less than 1% of total market share and face a long uphill road to expand that market share. When compared to Goliaths like Symbian, Research In Motion and the iPhone, the webOS platform lags far behind, even lagging behind the new up-and-coming Android OS.

Even though webOS hardly registers a statistical ripple in the highly-competitive global smartphone ocean, there are still plenty of bright spots to look forward to as webOS handsets become more widely available on other carriers and as the number of apps grow. Although it has modest beginnings, webOS may be poised to make a bigger splash in the months ahead.

source: engadget

Good news for Palm Pixi owners who happen to be die-hard PalmOS Classic fans. If you are one of the Classic-lovers who migrated to webOS but still use some legacy PalmOS apps and/or like the look and feel of the old PalmOS, MotionApps has come to the rescue. MotionApps has adjusted their popular PalmOS emulator to fit on the smaller 320 x 400 Pixi display. If you want a closer look and more information from MotionApps, just jump on over to their Facebook page and check out some screenshots.

source: Palm Infocenter

Our sister site, PhoneArena, has posted up a Verizon document that details the specifications for the new Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus smartphones. The Pre Plus will double the internal memory of the Sprint model to 16GB, include a 3.1″ capacitive display with 320×480 resolution and multi-touch support, slide-out physical QWERTY keyboard, Wi-Fi, EVDO Rev A, a 3MP camera with LED flash, Bluetooth, music and video playback, and document viewer.

If the Palm Pixi Plus is more to your fancy, you can expect 8GB of internal memory, a 2.63″ capacitive display with 320×480 resolution and multi-touch support, front-facing physical QWERTY keyboard, Wi-Fi, EVDO Rev A, a 2MP camera with LED flash, Bluetooth, music and video playback, and document viewer.

Just like their predecessors, neither the Pre Plus or the Pixi Plus have a means of expanding the memory and they both lack video recording. Otherwise, look forward to these new-and-improved handsets on Verizon.

The Palm App Catalog continues to steadily grow with each passing day, and now it looks like it will pass the 1,000 app mark either by the end of the year, which is now upon us, or very early in 2010. As more apps fill up the catalog, the webOS platform will become further entrenched and we can expect to see more specialized apps for business owners, students and professionals.

Although the apps in the App Catalog are designed for webOS devices, not all of the apps work for both Palm Pre and Pixi. Some of the apps are for the Pre only, but if you’re a Pixi owner, never fear — there are plenty of apps designed to work with both the Pre and the Pixi. Keep an eye on the app number in the top right corner of your App Catalog for the moment it passes 1,000. Good work, Palm — now let’s raise our glasses this New Year to thousands more apps!

source: mypre

One of the nice features of using a webOS-based handset like the Palm Pre or Pixi is that it is always connected to the “cloud”, keeping your data safe and backed-up via the Palm Profile. Connecting with the “cloud” is effective for those pesky times when you accidentally run over your Pre or Pixi with your car or someone is enjoying your new device via a “five-fingered discount.” What happens, though, if Palm’s server goes down and you no longer have access to the cloud and your Palm Profile?

Thanks to the folks over at Pre Central who asked this important question, we have a good idea about what will work and what won’t work. If Palm’s server crashes or there is some other interruption, the things that won’t work include: over-the-air backups and restoration, first-time setup, remote wipe, and app purchasing. Otherwise, you will be in good shape. You should have access to your phone data because it is stored locally on your webOS device. Email is also safe because you receive it to your handset via Exchange or IMAP Idle.

Next time your BlackBerry-toting buddy has email problems due to BlackBerry Internet Server (BIS) outages, try hard to suppress your smirk as you know that your webOS-powered Pre or Pixi will still deliver the goods even if Palm’s server can’t.

source: PreCentral

It’s been a little while since we reported on the happenings in the App Catalog. Recently, Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein said that “several thousand” new webOS apps would be coming with the release of the Ares development platform. As of Friday, the App Catalog stands at 843 apps — dwarfed by the iPhone and even the Android app stores, but steadily moving forward with more apps for Pre and Pixi owners.

Although there are no new apps as of December 21, there are several app updates. The updated apps are: Air Hockey ($0.99), Bible Reader ASV ($2.99), Classifieds2Go (Free), Color Puzzle ($0.99), Crosswords ($9.99), EZ Sketch ($0.99), Mine Search ($0.99), MoreStocks ($2.99), Send My Location for webOS (Free), Soccer Shots ($1.99), Space Alarm (Free), Speed ($0.99), Swap & Drop ($1.99), The Surprise ($0.99), Tic Tac Toe ($0.99), Top Stocks ($4.99), WallRevolve ($1.49), WingedCurator (Free), and Yule Log ($1.43).

source: PreCentral

During Palm’s investor conference call, CEO Jon Rubinstein confirmed the imminent release of the webOS 1.3.5 update and then outlined the improvements that we can expect. The 1.3.5 update will offer the following:

• Increase the limit for more app installation
• Improved battery life
• Increased speed for the Pixi
• Improved WiFi and app performance

Also, Mr. Rubinstein emphasized that Palm will showcase the Ares development platform at CES 2010 and that developers will receive more support and initiatives as “thousands” of webOS apps are expected soon. This is exciting news — particularly the “thousands” of apps part — that we hope will come to fruition sooner than later!

source: Pre Central

The annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas will be the venue for another Palm-hosted event to be held on Thursday, January 7th at 11 a.m. Palm has extended invitations to the media to attend and learn what Palm has to offer in 2010 and beyond. Attendance of the event is by invitation only. It is unlikely that there will be an announcement that is quite as monumental as the webOS and Pre announcement made at last year’s event, but as we learn more we will share.

source: Palm Infocenter