Remember back in the day where the gadget to have for everyone that was anyone was a Palm Pilot? It’s hard to believe that devices from Palm once held the rock star status that is today reserved only for the BlackBerry and the iPhone.
Palm was so big that Palm Pilot almost became a generic term kind of like Xerox. It really didn’t matter what type of PDA you had, most people referred to it as a Palm Pilot.
It is kind of sad seeing where Palm has fallen to. 10 years ago they were on top of the world. Today their stock has been downgraded to sell and is sitting at $5.76. Research in Motion, on the other hand, moved into the top 5 of wireless handset manufacturers and opened up today at $137.50.
[Source]
A lot of issues here. Splitting into 2 companies was a mistake. Indecision whether to be a Palm OS device or a “me too” Win Mobile device. Blind arrogance that their form factor was superior, when the industry as a whole was going thin. The world has passed them by, by the time they get their new OS out, it will be too late.
Comparing stock prices gives an inaccurate picture because the number of shares and outstanding debt levels are different. Looking at just the stock prices, one would conclude that Rim is about 24x more valuable than Palm, but in reality, Rim is over a 100x more valuable than Palm. The “Enterprise Value” which is the value of all stock and debt of a company is the appropriate comparison point.
Enterprise Values (from Yahoo! Finance)
PALM: 0.75B
RIMM: 77B
@ Monkey in Chief
Correct. The market value on Palm is 613 million. But the best part is the EPS…-.50. Gotta love that. If that doesn’t tell you something about the company…PE = N/A. LOL…their going down. Sad part is I can’t see anyone buying them. The bleeding is too much, and the technology really doesn’t have anything to offer.
Pride hatch a fall.