Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Palm’s Pre Inventory Glut
Discussing Palm’s first-quarter results earlier this month, the company’s leadership claimed that “the vast majority of new sales” for the quarter were generated by the Pre. Palm sold some 823,000 handsets during that period with sell-through of 810,000 units, so that’s an impressive feat. But only if the sales we’re talking about here were made to on-the-street consumers. And, according to Town Hall research analyst David Eller, it’s not entirely clear that they were.
“For something we pulled together in six months, we are very pleased with the satisfaction we got. The satisfaction for the device was superhigh.” Microsoft chairman Bill Gates said that of the Zune in October 2007. Boy was he ever wrong. MarketWatch reports that revenue at Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices unit, which manages the Zune and Xbox 360, fell 42 percent to about $211 million in its most recent quarter.
