With Q3 FY 2010 financial report released this week and the outlook is still gloomy for Palm, it is being titled as a candidate for a “potential” buyout. But the future is in its own hands, and for the company like Palm it still has enough potential to weather out of this state and see some sunlight. There are some key areas where Palm has to rework its strategy. Palm has a good product line with likes of Palm Pre Plus & Palm Pixi Plus, and powered by a striking Linux core webOS platform enabling an intuitive UI covering all the basic traits to suit the targeted North American market. But still it’s unable to leverage on this appealing product line. The major issue for this lacklustre performance is due to its competition against the smartphone giants- Apple with a richer user experience and sea of applications, Samsung & LG growth with their manufacturing strategy customizing to satisfy mobile operator’s market segments, Blackberry with strong enterprise growth as well as remarkable entry into consumer segment, and the growing entrant Google with its open Android Platform. It is clear that Android, Mac OS X, Blackberry will dominate the North American market and Palm will be a secondary priority for the operators in spite of an innovative webOS platform. Based on the latest results, roughly half of the Palm’s shipments are in carrier channels struggling to sell through and the pressure is likely to increase further as Apple iPhone and Android begins the next innings with major software and hardware revisions in the following quarters. Perhaps Palm need to embrace growing platforms like Android, where operator and consumer interest is on the rise. By developing cross platform interfaces and services such as the Synergy, Palm can still provide a unique user experience on top of Android without betting the farm on webOS. Also, with positive outlook on HTML’s growth and adoption in mobile phones, from the applications development point of view Palm is at an advantage in leveraging its HTML/CSS written webOS in an opportunity to create new revenue vistas through mobile web browser based applications easily which may attract the operators participating in the recently announced “Wholesale Applications Community” at GSMA World Congress in Barcelona. Palm should also keep an eye on in incorporating the evolving wireless technologies (ex: TD-SCDMA, HSPA+, LTE) to expand and diversify its future offerings. So, Palm should for now go with the flow instead going against it and incorporate newer platforms like Android in its portfolio by 2011 instead of pushing the sole struggling webOS devices and thus come up with unique selling propositions satisfying the consumers & operator’s needs. Palm should also focus on striking strong long-term operator relationships especially GSM operators with a well thought and executed go-to-market strategy,and clawback out of this deteriorating situation. Thus, there will not be any need for “Palm” reading, as it will control its own future. - Neil Shah