November 25, 2008 by Jay Smith
Palm Inc, the once highly successful personal organiser manufacturer, plans to cut jobs as the company struggles to compete with Apple and RIM, the makers of the iPhone and the Blackberry respectively. Layoffs are expected to begin this week, though the company refuses to comment on numbers or on which departments will be worst hit.
Palm, who make the Centro and Treo SmartPhones have struggled to keep up in both the consumer and business sectors, with RIM’s Blackberry exerting almost total dominance of the business market and the iPhone proving a true consumer phenomenon this year. This failure to compete has left many of Palm’s 1050 employees updating their CVs and preparing themselves for that dreaded meeting with their line manager.
According to Lynn Fox, the company’s spokeswoman, Palm’s plan is to “Consolidate resources and focus our efforts more effectively.” What that means is that they are betting heavily on their as yet unnamed new device, which, much like the G1 Android phone, will run on its own personalised operating system.
The talent to make a success of this new venture is in place after the company poached John Rubinstein and Mike Bell from Apple, although the Smartphone market is tough, with only a certain number of buyers for an ever growing number of devices. It’ll take something a bit special for Palm to even compete.
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