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Strategies & Market Trends : Can you beat 50% per month? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Smiling Bob who wrote (14957)	1/13/2009 1:12:48 PM
From: Smiling Bob	Respond to of 19257

PALM 5.89 Tenaciously consolidating in 6 area and killing puts 3 days remaining for a retrace Was hoping for the ever elusive payoff --- Palm Investors May Want To Take Wait And See Path Posted By: Jim Goldman Topics:Wireless Communications \| Information Technology \| Technology Sectors:Software and Computer Services \| Software \| Telecommunications \| Technology Companies:Palm Inc \| Research in Motion Limited \| Apple Inc PALM Palm executives will be the first to tell you that the groundwork is now there to pull this company out of the financial cellar, but that there's still an enormous amount of work to be done to achieve its success. Last week at the Consumer Electronics Show, CEO Ed Colligan and Executive Chairman Jon Rubinstein did the expected by unveiling the new Palm WebOS operating system; and the unexpected by taking the wraps off its new touchscreen smart phone, the Palm Pre. I had the chance to play with it, show it off on air, and the few of us who actually got to hold it were impressed by its elegance, its design, how it looked and felt. It's a sweet phone but investors would be wise to consider the news that Palm didn't announce: most notably a price and a release date. "Some time in the first half" of 2009 simply isn't good enough for the 91 percent, two-day rally in Palm shares. Colligan reassured me that the price would be "competitive" with similarly capable phones on the market. Again, not good enough to spark this kind of rally. Palm [PALM 5.85 -0.06 (-1.02%) ] enjoyed a series of key upgrades Monday, maybe the most notable of which comes from Global Crown Capital's Pablo Perez-Fernandez who has vocally called for Colligan's head and lambasted the company for its inability to get its innovation engine in gear and get its products out the door. He has had a "sell" on these shares for months, and while he still holds some reservations about the company, he glowingly upgraded Palm on the Pre news. And now I'm waiting for Air Traffic Controllers across the country to report scattered sightings of pink porkers in the skies because indeed, Pablo's upgrade might signal pigs flying. o More: Palm Surprises with New Handset AND Software Pacific Crest's James Faucette projects today a half-million Pre phones sold in its first six months of availability. He took his target up 50 percent to $9 a share, and doesn't see a take-out offer of less than $25.50 if someone comes sniffing around for a deal. Look, I don't doubt that Palm has a winner in its hands with Pre. And with Elevation Partners' recent infusion of cash and confidence, the company will have the tools to give Pre a good shot in the marketplace. The problem is Palm has ceded so much of the market and its leadership to Apple [AAPL 87.10 -1.56 (-1.76%) ] and Research in Motion [RIMM 45.96 -0.49 (-1.05%) ] -- neither of which is sitting still, by the way -- that there are still real, deep concerns over just how much of a success story Palm has left to write. I don't want to rain on the parade here, but a blockbuster product alone doesn't spell automatic success, especially for a company with such systemic execution issues. I think Colligan is a capable guy with a great story to tell. I think Palm is clearly putting in place the right engineering talent to re-ignite innovation. But rather than think the Pre release is the end of Palm's problems, it's the beginning of an enormous challenge ahead. The company's on its way. But such a huge stock spike so quickly is more troubling than reassuring. Palm investors may want to think about walking first before, well, sprinting.