The Palm Pilot

Résumé du document

Palm Inc. is the leading global provider of Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) for both hardware and operating systems. The company sold its first PDA in 1996 and quickly established a leadership role in the PDA industry. In a span of four years, its revenues grew from $1 million to $564 million. At the end of the May 1999, Palm had achieved nearly 73% shares of the US market and over 68% shares of the worldwide market for PDA products. There were over 50,000 developers who had agreed to make application software for the Palm OS or hardware accessories for the handhelds.

Although Palm Inc. enjoyed immense growth and dominating shares in the PDA market, the future for this market still remains uncertain in the face of the major competitors' different predictions concerning the directions in which the market will go.

Thus, ‘How to keep the Palm way of PDA a standard in the future?' is a big challenge that the company is facing today.

Extraits

[...] They are also more demanding. This ‘culture of technology' testifies that the time gap between ‘technophiles' adoption of new products and mass-consumption is shorter. Such a continuous craze for new technologies is something very profitable for an industry which requires constant innovation. However, a short cycle of life of the offered products and hardware can jeopardize the industry's profitability as products need to be updated quickly, and thus can force firms to cut prices on their existing products. Moreover, the constant outdating of existing products and the fall in prices can be barriers to consumption as potential buyers may hesitate to buy products that will be old-fashioned a few months later. [...]

[...] Reputation Resource - Strong Alliance with the industrial Giants Alliances are among the corporate philosophies of the Palm; it frequently creates relationships with key hardware and software solution providers, especially those with strong enterprise offerings. The company joined forces with other major players in high technology industries to ensure the extensive use of its OS. Reputation Resource - Cooperated Suppliers Relationship There are over 170,000 registered Palm developers. The company nurtures this valuable asset by making the Palm OS easy to develop, so that licensees can create everything from smart phones to simple handhelds to high-end multimedia handhelds, easily and profitably. [...]

[...] This force was the major power which pushed the PDA industry to grow. Technological Resource - Palm Three-fourths of the world's handhelds run on the Palm the core of the Palm Platform, and the company still drives the best combination of expandability, wireless capability, usability and flexibility. The popularity of the platform is reflected in its roster of world-class licensees and in its worldwide Palm product architectures. Human Resource - Expert Management Team The management team consists of specialized professionals who share the mission of the company and are passionate about driving the Palm to the fore. [...]

[...] Here, simple Palms will find new ways of being suitable. The competence of huge financial resources supports such a solution. CONCLUSION By keeping to its core competence of simplicity and standardisation in its products, Palm should be able to able to have some economies of scale in its production costs, and allow it to earn a profit despite the pressure from the retailers. However, customers' needs are becoming more and more individual; to meet these demands, Palm should make sure that its simple standard products are able to fit these individual needs. [...]

[...] As mentioned earlier, today, people are more demanding regarding technologies and even armed with greater amount of information (specialized press, internet forums, etc.). Thus, the bargaining power of buyers as a whole is high. Intensity of rivalry among Competitors The new niche of PDAs and its development perspectives increase the competition between the existing firms, and attract new firms as well. As fixed costs and Research & Development costs are really high, the firms in the market need to be successful, and strategic stakes are really important in a new-born market that is trying to find its way. [...]