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
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 
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.
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?
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.
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:
first released on Sprint, one of the big drawbacks when compared to the Pre was lack of WiFi. Evidence from the FCC suggests that those wanting a WiFi’d Pixi may be in luck very soon.
A reliable source has told PreCentral that they spotted an AT&T-branded Palm Pixi out in the wild, more specifically on San Francisco mass transit. There is no picture available to make visual confirmation, so the existence of an AT&T Palm Pixi will have to be taken on faith. Of special interest is the branding of the device with AT&T – branding is usually not a practice performed well in advance of a phone release so if this phone is already branded, then the release may be mere months away.
In the spirit of Christmas, screaming audience members were more than delighted (crazed, in fact) to receive a free Palm Pixi as part of Ellen’s “12 Days of Giveaways”. Along with the Palm Pixi, the audience members scored several other super-gadgets just in time for the holidays, but the one that is near and dear to our hearts is the Palm Pixi.
Palm released the webOS 1.3.2 update for the Pixi last night, and according to the 