Coinciding with the official announcement of the Treo Pro, The New York Times this morning published a piece on Palm CEO Ed Colligan and Executive Chairman John Rubinstein, who left Apple and was brought in to breathe life back into the once-floundering company.
Along with such (great) lines as “Everyone is trying to make an iPhone killer. We are trying to make a killer Palm product,” we get a quick look at Palm's strategy for the Treo Pro.
Writes Laura M. Holson:
Palm has begun to market its products differently at the behest of Mr. Colligan, who has a long history with Palm and its various antecedents and spinoffs. It is scrapping the use of numbers in product names, Mr. Keast said.
As has been apparent with the Centro, and which Holson acknowledges, this shift has been in place for some time now. While Palm has said from the get-go - OK, since this morning - the Treo Pro is a power user's device, and not nearly as consumer-oriented as the Centro. We haven't seen nearly the marketing push, at least not with the 800w, as Sprint put behind the Centro. And never mind that there's currently no U.S. carrier on board for the Treo Pro, and that it initially will be available unlocked for $549.
So it will be interesting to see the response - from Palm, the U.S. carriers and finally the customers - to what easily is the sexiest Treo in the lineup.
But Rubinstein admits there's still a long road ahead.
“One product isn’t going to make us successful,” he said. “It is a brick in the foundation. And each one has to be better than the last.”
Read Palm, Once a Leader, Seeks Path in Smartphone Jungle
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