More on why Colligan has to go
Scott sent me this piece talking with Colligan about the future of Palm. I can’t top what he said, which was:
Which is more ironic?
“we really believe that to create the most compelling solution it should be an integrated package much like we started with the Palm OS and doing the original Palm Pilots: we did the operating system, we did the hardware and we did the whole synching architecture and the desktop tie-in” –Ed Colligan
or the following, a few sentences later?
Palm’s consumer devices (Centro) will continue to run the ‘classic’ PalmOS, the new prosumer devices will run the new Linux-based OS, while the enterprise devices will continue to run Windows Mobile
Which adequately sums up the problem… but let’s look on with a little more detail. Check this:
Today Colligan is at the helm of Palm. He’s guided the development of the Centro, made the call to axe the much-maligned Foleo, and is now overseeing the development of an all-new operating system to power the next generation of Palm devices due in 2009.
Ok, the Centro looks like it’s doing pretty good for Palm, even though it is killing their margins, still, I’ve been seeing them in real people’s hands recently and that’s always promising. He made the call to axe the Foleo. Well. Yes. He also must have made the call to spend years developing the Foleo at the expense of their actually successful (at the time) line of Treo phones squandering their years long lead on other smart phones. Hmm… Now overseeing the development of their new OS. Well… why is that just happening now? Oh, right, because they were too busy with the Foleo when they should have been working on the new OS. Hm..
He does say something smart here in regards to competition from Apple, Google, etc…:
And it seems to me that when there’s a billion of anything sold per year – well, we don’t have to have Apple, RIM or Nokia be unsuccessful for us to be enormously successful.
Which is genuinely the best way I’ve seen any of the handset makers explain that they aren’t going to be doomed by the latest generations of phones. At least he’s not carrying on about how Apple isn’t just going to walk right into the handset making business.
Then he goes on talking about their next operating system, Palm 2.0 or something.
Colligan speaks of this as being a “next-generation operating system with much more capabilities, driven around the Internet and Web-based applications”.
Wait, what? Driven around web-based applications? Isn’t this one of the few areas where the world really got pissed at Apple for making the only apps available web apps? Didn’t we just figure out that web apps are good for some things and royally suck for others? Why would you make a whole new OS that’s just about web apps? Sigh, but whatev, let’s assume that this next OS is going to kick butt. What then?
“Centro is our consumer line of products, the start of a product line to hit that demographic and price point” Colligan says. “Centro will be strictly Palm OS”.
What? You’re going to have a great OS but continue to make your entry level line your hulking, monstrosity of an ancient OS? Uh, why? Is anyone else in this business differentiating marketing lines by OS? It’d be as if Microsoft said you can run your Thinkpads using XP or Vista, but EEE’s are only going to run Win95.
I mean, it really is just so stupid to be touting the benefits of owning the whole stack (hardware, os, sync architecture) and how great your new OS is going to be while at the same time saying how you’re going to keep your old OS for some and keep someone else’s OS for others. As Scott said “I believe in the power of owning the whole stack for one third of our products.”
And that’s why I keep saying Colligan needs to go. Where the hell is his vision? And his driving goals? Please. I think it’s true that Palm’s not out yet, all you need is one hit in this game and you’re back so the next OS could very well kick butt, I wouldn’t bet on it, but it could. I think that their long term chances are much lower with Colligan and the helm. I think he doesn’t know what he’s doing - he’s the one, after all, who decided to break up Palm and spin of the OS. I defended the move for years, but it’s definitely proven to be absolutely the wrong thing to have done. And he’s the one that has basically had Palm do absolutely nothing, NOTHING, over the past several years and when you’re a technology company standing still is just inexcusable.
