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palm
Eric Benhamou: The Saga Of Palm (Part 8)
SM: What is Ed Colligan’s area of expertise? EB: He contributed a lot in the marketing front of the company. That was his main contribution. Ed was a first time CEO. The board felt he could preserve the innovation skills that had characterized the success of the early Palm days as well as Handspring, while
Eric Benhamou: The Saga Of Palm (Part 7)
SM: I want to ask about some of these aspects. I think operationally you managed to turn the company around, but where was the marketing vision, the juice, coming from? Who was the visionary? EB: We still had Jeff, who had envisioned the Treo. It was his brainchild, just like the initial PalmPilot. He was
Eric Benhamou: The Saga Of Palm (Part 6)
SM: Was there was a lot of vision overlap between Palm and Handspring at the time of the acquisition? EB: Yes, this meant that essentially we were buying them back to have access to the smartphone product which was the Treo. The first Treo was an interesting product, but not a great product. It was
Eric Benhamou: The Saga Of Palm (Part 5)
The impact of 9/11 on a company such as Palm is important to acknowledge. Up to this point, these devices were luxury items in the corporate environment – nice to have, but certainly not mission critical. Post 9/11, America was a terrified society, focused on the fundamentals. Against this backdrop, Eric took over as the
Eric Benhamou: The Saga Of Palm (Part 4)
Palm’s product schedule went off-track, as they steered consumers off Palm V, an obviously terrific product, without a compelling new product introduction. SM: Do you think it created market confusion for customers? EB: Yes. It was a sign that the pace of innovation had slowed down. All of the people we had put in place
Eric Benhamou: The Saga Of Palm (Part 3)
After a year of relative stability, Palm faced the market crash concurrently with a failed product launch. The combination of stock market problems and operational failure created a bad situation which was compounded by a lack of innovation in product development. SM: Did the stock price sustain for a bit? The market started going bonkers
Eric Benhamou: The Saga Of Palm (Part 2)
With an unstable market, Eric knew the price of Palm was not going to sustain at those highs. But what exactly happened when the market crashed? SM: It is hard to sustain that kind of price range … EB: We knew the price had to come down, but we did not exactly know how it
Eric Benhamou: The Saga Of Palm (Part 1)
In this second interview series with Eric Benhamou, we discuss his involvement with Palm. If you haven’t already, do read the first interview series for context [here]. As you know, Palm is in the midst of a great deal of change at the moment. However, it is an important company that established the PDA category,
