Palm Press — Pre Gets an Update, Staff Reduction Hits Palm
UPDATED: It is Thursday and that can only mean it’s time for another Palm Press. Palm Press is our weekly look at the world of Palm. The big news this week was the appearance of the version 1.2 update for the webOS used on the Pre. WebOS 1.2 brought a significant number of improvements and new features to the Pre. This update accompanied the launch of paid apps in the App Catalog, and it’s expected we’ll start seeing apps in greater number appear going forward. Unfortunately, the 1.2 update exposed a problem with the Pre backup service that can force a reset of a phone if the Palm Profile server is down.
In the less happy news department, Palm has apparently had to reduce its staff due to disappointing sales of the Pre. The exact sales figures are not known but Palm’s filings with the SEC show sales numbers that only reflect deliveries to Sprint. These numbers do not reflect how many phones have actually sold to consumers, and analysts fear there are quite a few in Sprint’s inventory system unsold. This is thought to be the reason behind the staff reductions. Palm has not stated where the reductions would be taken.
It has been widely expected since the launch of the Pre that Verizon would be carrying the phone when Sprint’s exclusive period ended. Verizon’s CEO stated a while back that the carrier would indeed get the Pre at that time. A rumor that cropped up this week that Verizon would not in fact carry the Pre has been widely disputed by those in the know.
Update: CrunchGear has received the following statement from Palm:
“We are not laying people off. As we continue our transformation we are better aligning our staff with our business objectives.”
Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.
Palm stated unmistakably that this is wrong. The staff reduction was due to windows mobile being phased out. The pre sales numbers are also the ‘sell through’ number. i.e.the numbers sold by spring, best buy, etc to end customers, NOT the number sold to retailers. This info was first thrown out there yesterday, and then disputed by palm within hours. You may want to check more sources when your stories run late like this…
>Palm has not stated where the reductions would be taken.
You are correct. In fact, they stated explictly that this is wrong altogether. They issued this statement yesterday:
“We are not laying people off. As we continue our transformation we are better aligning our staff with our business objectives.”
If you are going to post day old stories from copycat sources you’d think you would have time to get the most updated versions!
Bigger news – http://www.precentral.net/first-paid-apps-webos-hit-tomorrow
This post was exactly what it claimed to be, a weekly roundup of news. It is not intended to be a “breaking news” item. We always want to get the correct information out there, of course. Can you provide a link to Palm’s statements about the staff reductions? I cannot find them anywhere on the Palm site.
Thanks.
Palm PR rep:
“”Will Palm lay off employees?” http://bit.ly/duxDv (via @WebOSArena). In a word, no.”
To which someone replies:
“@foxycar they are laying out Windows Mobile employees. Palm announced 2 weeks ago that they will cease winmo support.”
And she responded:
“@chi_weets I work at Palm. I do PR. I’m saying, “no.”"
Thanks for that. I’m still trying to get an official response from Palm. The examples quoted above are not exactly official. I hope this is accurate, I so want Palm to succeed.
I thought I read in the thread you had linked to about the backup problem that several users that had not upgraded also had the problem. It seemed to me to be a “backup server” problem rather than one specific to 1.2
That is correct, and I didn’t intend to give the impression that the 1.2 update created this problem. It did expose it, I think, as the backup server seemed to go down at the same time the update rolled out.
wow James, i know your just a blogger but you REALLY need to be more careful about your sources. this is borderline FUD you’re spreading. then when your readers come on correcting you, instead of being so belligerent to them you should thank them & apologize for your mistake
You are absolutely correct, we need to be careful where we get information. I wasn’t intending to be belligerent here, I am sad I gave that impression. I thank each one of you for your contribution and I apologize if anyone was adversely affected by my handling of it.
http://www.precentral.net/analyst-talks-pre-sales-smack-palm-delivers-smackdown
Palm in a response to John Paczkowski of Digital Daily said, “The sell-through data we post reflects carriers’ sales to their customers. For example, Sprint customers include consumers who buy in a Sprint store, and Sprint retail partners such as Best Buy and RadioShack. We rely on our wireless carriers to provide us with sell-through data, and we note this fact in our 10Q.”
http://gizmodo.com/5371309/is-the-palm-pre-tanking
Interesting. So I just read this post in my feed, and since it had been downloaded this morning, the feed didn’t actually show me the update with the correction of the layoff story. I only saw that when I came to your actual site to comment on the fact that the source for that claim used question marks and “may be cutting jobs” …