Ill tidings for the Palm world as Sony announces they will be withdrawing the Clie line from the US at least throughout the end of the year. Though Sony intends to honor all warranty and service agreements and to continue selling Clie in Japan, the retreat from market by the only other major PalmOS vendor besides PalmOne will have profound repercussions across the entire PDA market, despite Sony’s insistence this is a “re-grouping” and not a total withdrawal from the market. BargainPDA’s editors offer their opinions, and I’ll quickly add mine after the jump.
I think in many ways, this is a Sony story, and not one about Palm. In their statements to BargainPDA, Sony maintains that they feel mobile devices need to be strong in multimedia and gaming. They intend, they say, to push “innovative devices” to market through Sony Ericsson, but that’s a red herring. This is about the PSP, and a move reflective of how much Sony is staking on its success.
Let’s say you’re Sony and you want to sell as many devices as possible. Palm PDA sales have been flagging, though generally still fairly strong, but you’re losing most of the buzz and sales to a PalmOS Smartphone (PalmOne’s Treo 600) that you have no clear competitor to (besides the Sony Ericsson P900). You’re getting ready to launch what could be your first major console gaming misstep in a decade. What do you do?
It’s clear that most people and companies in this position would pull their weaker units back close to themselves and prepare themselves for their next major offensive (I don’t know how this metaphor got military on me.)
So anyway, that’s the Sony perspective, at least as divined by me using my infallible tech insight. That doesn’t address the position this leaves PalmOne in, but I think I can sum my opinion of their options even more succinctly: put all your chips on Treo, add new Treo models, and ride the buzz as long as you can. Ride it long enough, and I bet Sony will be back next year with a PalmOS smartphone of their own.
Read – Sony Exits the PDA Market [BargainPDA]
Read – Sayonara, Clie [Brighthand]
Update: PDABuyer’sGuide has some thoughts, including speculation about the market exit by Gartner Group’s Todd Kort.
Read [PDABuyersGuide]
