Last week Palm announced they weren't selling as many devices as anticipated, negatively impacting their projected sales. CEO Jon Rubinstein claimed to have made the announcement early in an effort to "prevent a surprise for Wall Street when [they] announce quarterly earnings in March." Following all the news, Rubinstein sent out a company-wide email to ease the mind of employees, and presumably, to provide hope for the future.
So what comes next? A rumor of course, followed by a good helping of "advice" from various wireless industry analysts. According to Computerworld, there's been plenty of chatter about the possibility of Palm working with Sprint on a WiMAX (that's 4G, if you didn't know) capable phone in the not-so-distant future. This isn't difficult to believe, per se, based on Palm's current relationship with the number three carrier, and Sprint's desire to sell WiMAX to the masses.
Analyst commentary, as is usually the case, goes in several different directions. Some suggest that the 4G plan is a good one, while others say the real move is getting the GSM familly (read: AT&T and T-Mobile) on board--which is actually expected to happen later this year. One analyst even suggested building a device that looks like an iPhone (Why so Apple can sue Palm too? Seriously?), because larger screens and more power seems to be the direction in which the consumer market is headed.
What do you think Palm should do? WiMax, GSM, iPalm, all of the above? Consumer Analysts, report below!
Via Computerworld, BGR, Gizmodo