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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