Saturday, December 29, 2007

Could Tech Support Undo Palm?

If you are thinking about getting a Palm device, this article and its comments ought to be enough to convince you to choose something else.

Tristan Louis was a loyal Palm customer/user until her recent encounter with Palm’s customer service. A snippet of her experience:

So I asked employee C11329 to be transfered to her manager. She told me she was the most senior person at Palm. I asked her again politely to transfer me to her manager. She told me she had none. I asked to be transfered to the person that was reviewing her work, giving her assignments, etc.. I was told she had none. I told her I felt that was odd as, apart from the chairman and CEO, I didn’t know of anyone in a company not having a manager. She told me she was the CEO.

For a second, I paused. “You’re the CEO of Palm, Inc.?” I asked again, not really believing what I was hearing. “Yes, I am” she replied, now with a defiant tone. “So you’re telling me you’re Ed Colligan?” I asked. “I am the CEO and that’s all you need to know.”

It goes on. Read it for yourself if you're looking for an amusing story of tech support gone wrong. Then follow Tristan's search for an alternative smartphone.

Absent some major, unforeseen development, I'd say it's clear Palm is done. The company has undergone an absurd number of iterations (or a number of absurd iterations?) and each one has weakened the platform to the point that it's become stagnant and irrelevant in the face of increasing competition and innovation.

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Monday, December 24, 2007

RIM Up, Palm Down, As iPhone Kicks Ass

Palm and RIM have unusual fiscal calendars, so they've recently released results for their Sept. - Nov. quarters. Turns out Palm is continuing to tank and thinks cranking out more Windows phones will save them. Have any of them actually used a Windows-based phone? I guess it's a better experience than the actual Palm OS which hasn't received significant updates since Palm was, uh, relevant.

Meanwhile, RIM is on a tear, having discovered that ordinary consumers, and not just executives, might want smartphones, too. And here comes Apple, already grabbing larger market share in the US than Windows Mobile and closing in fast on BlackBerry.

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Uh… thanks?

Just in time for Christmas, comes this gem of an idea -- a place to log your pointless, inappropriate or other "special" gifts for all to share.

Before you send that gift to the landfill, why not snap a quick photo and tell us about it. You know you want to tell someone but can’t because the person that gave it to you might find out. Now you can. Don’t worry. We won’t publish any of your personal information. Your secret is safe with us.

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