About four days ago, Engadget wrote an open letter to Palm asking them…for a lack of a better word…to wake the f**k up. But don’t get me wrong, Engadget wasn’t actually trying to cut Palm into shreds or put them down while singing praises of the new iPhone. After reading the pretty lengthy letter, I felt that there was much love in what they have to say.
Allow me to summarise what Engadget was trying to put across, (if you don’t have time to read the whole letter). Back in the days of yonder, Palm was looked up upon by many as the future of innovation and perhaps the face of mobile technolgoy. But after a while, we begin to see a shift in the mobile market share from Palm to Windows Mobile and the iPhone in particular.
Their hardware, especially the Treo series have not changed much since its birth in the beginning of the millennium and its proprietary softwares aren’t making any major progress. Heck, even third party mobile software developers are not choosing Palm as their preferred choice and moving off to the other markets. All these and alot more (you have to read the letter to get details) are leading to Palm’s current tumbling stock, perhaps the lowest in its history.
However, Engadget hasn’t given up on Palm at all, in fact, the open letter provided Palm with comprehensive information/tips/ideas/yeah you get the point, on what Palm needs to do to get back into the mobile game. To me..that is “much love”.
Now that we kinda understood where Engadget is coming from, here is the part that amazes me…Palm responded after two days. Their promise? To shake things up big time!! And I think they might just got the fighting spirit back. Comments poured in from both blogs giving Palm a pat on the back just for even responding and are excited with their promise to provide a better Palm experience.
This experience has reinforced a lesson I learnt at a PR 2.0 conference attended early this month. Companies really need to embrace and communicate with other blogs out there, not just the media alone. You can keep quiet all you want but others will still continue to talk…and if it is not working…bitch about you. Palm’s response provided ex-Palm-and-still-wanting-to-be-Palm-owners a new hope. Nice move there Ed, hope you will keep your promise. I am looking forward to be a Palm user again 
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Am still a fan of Palm. Still holding on to a Palm TX. Nice to see the reply from Ed. Let’s hope Palm can make a comeback.
DK: Hey, long time no see man, thanks for popping again. I have a Palm TX too man..but eh, gave it to my brother-in-law and got myself a windows mobile phone. But if Palm reinvents itself properly, I will be looking forward to be a proud owner of Palm again