Palm Computing Marketing Case Study

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PALM - Team Case Analysis

IT Management

Columbus Cohort, Team 6

Ann-Ina  Olsen, Amina Parveen, Fabio Muroni,

 Jinyang Zhang, Li Wang, Simardeep Bhatia

Introduction

Palm Computing was established by Jeff Hawkins in January 1992, with support from venture capitalists and GRiD as parent company. Hawkins with Donna Dubinsky was responsible for the development of the tablet computer at GRiD systems and was working for a project named "Zoomer" under Tandy Corporation. But due to some internal conflicts the product was not launched as expected and failed to satisfy customers. After the failure of this product, they decided to shift their efforts in writing software that would allow greater connectivity between PDAs to desktop PCs. After successful efforts in implementing Graffiti technology that permitted Palm to reduce it's the unit's processing power, there were efforts in creating a compact device which was simple, fast and expandable and that was an accessory to PC instead of miniature version of a PC. However, Palm was facing cash problem and could not manufacture more devices without more financial resources. Hence, in September 1995, Palm's management team approved the takeover by US Robotics with a condition that they could remain in control of Palm which gave Palm access to modem technology, US manufacturing sites, and contacts with nationwide retail stores. Shortly after acquisition they introduced an updated version of the device in April 1996 and released software development kits (SDK) to create applications for the device. Palm was a small company among industries of giants; they had been responsible for the highly successful palm device, which currently held 74% of domestic market share and 51% of the worldwide market.

Problem

Microsoft, the main competitor was attempting to establish a standard operating system to shake Palm's leadership in PDA market. In February 1997, the CEO of US Robotics began applying pressure on Palm executives to open Palm OS to other computer manufactures in order to expand Palm's market share and solidify its leadership in PDA market, but was disagreed by the Palm's co-founders. They believed that if company opened the Palm OS, it would hurt the sales of their own handheld product and threaten their dominance in PDA market. Apart from this concern because of IT limitation the PDA market was immature, the customer base was still limited. Hence, how to expand market and explore the potential users was a big problem that Palm had to face.

Analysis

Customer Segment for professional use will be corporate businesses that buy the device in order for the corporation and the employees to use it for business. Businessmen will buy it for their own use in their job. For the private market the segmented customers will be early adopters who normally would be tech savvies. These people buy the newest tech devices because they are curious and always want to be ahead of the technology side.

Customer Relationship will be maintained through account managers and automated services. The one-to-many service will contact the customers, get their feedback and always make sure that the customers are satisfied with their devices at all times.