Palm Tells 100 Workers To Talk To The Hand

Palm has been taking a beating recently. The smartphone market they compete in was already crowded before the iPhone appeared to steal marketshare, and their ill-starred UMPC bombed so badly that the product was withdrawn. Now Palm is laying off about 10% of their workforce of 1150. Merry Christmas.

Palm's statement said the restructuring, which also included some reassignments, was part of its ongoing effort to "focus and better align resources behind core initiatives" and "to ensure that our expenses are in line with projected revenues."

Palm has struggled against stiffening competition over the past year. Some missteps, including product delays and the cancellation in September of a portable computer call Foleo, have compounded the problem.

When the company reports its fiscal second-quarter results Tuesday, it has said it will swing to a wider loss than had been expected because of yet another delay in a product launch. The company did not name the product but analysts widely believe it is a Treo model slated for a major wireless carrier.

I love corporate-speak: "focus and better align resources behind core initiatives" is a terrific example. If they could have worked in "synergy" and sprinkled "2.0" here and there, it would have been perfect. Palm used to be a market leader. I still use my ancient Palm PDA. Their Foleo is actually a platform a lot of people like me need, a substantial screen and a real keyboard for light websearching and e-mail. Pull yourselves together and bring the thing to market. I hope you didn't lay off the people that could do it, while keeping the people that write press releases like that in their place.