Can Palm be saved? Or is the third place smartphone maker past its turnaround point, as Judy Mottl asked in her story today.

After Palm's news of layoffs amid the economic downturn and following another quarterly loss, the drumbeat has begun for the smartphone maker. Barron's quotes Global Crown Capital analyst Pablo Perez-Fernandez saying the holiday season could mark the beginning of the end for Palm.

Despite the recent addition of two Apple brainiacs John Rubinstein and Mike Bell, analysts and more Treo fans are now thinking the same thing: how long Palm can last in the face of fierce competition in the smartphone market and rivals putting slick devices into the market at an even faster pace.

As a longtime Treo devotee from a legion of Palm PDA fans of over a decade, it's hard to see this happen.

My beef for some time has been how the software on the device has just not kept pace with mobile innovation.

It was a slide we hoped wouldn't happen, but one we could see coming three years ago when Palm, having already split itself into two companies - one hardware, one software - sold its software unit that developed the Palm operating system to Access Systems of Japan for $324 million.

At the time, Treo owners debated Palm's ability to support the software on the device with the division out of the house. Palm would later pull itself back from the brink with a $44 million payment to Japan's Access Systems for a perpetual license of the Palm OS operating system. Gartner's Ken Dulaney thought that the Palm OS would likely be history within five years -- with or without a long-term license. As he told InternetNews.com then:

"The likely destination is a Palm OS based on Linux, similar to the operating system Access is selling to phone companies."

That could be one way to secure Palm at this point.

So maybe Yahoo will get a sale of itself after all, now that Jerry Yang has agreed to step down after the media portal has found its next CEO. His memo has the usual lower-case approach, but was way too vague in my view. Without giving away specifics in a memo he knew would be circulated to the media, Yang might have mentioned the strength of the ad platform, or cited metrics on growth, or even referred to bright spots that came out of the most recent earnings results -- anything to highlight the assets for which Microsoft would have paid dearly.

As Yang wrote in his memo, "we believe the time is now right to transition to a new ceo who can take the company to the next level." Whether that's a price approaching the $32 a share that Microsoft dangled back before the credit markets imploded, we shall see.

Onward, upward!


 


Here's the full text of Jerry Yang's memo to the Yahoo-ers yesterday

From: Jerry Yang

Sent: Monday, November 17, 2008 5:03 PM

Subject: update

yahoos -

i wanted to address all of you on the news we've just announced. the board of directors and I have agreed to initiate a succession process for the ceo role of yahoo!. roy bostock, our chairman of the board, is leading the effort to identify and assess potential candidates for consideration by the full board. the board will be evaluating and considering both internal and external candidates and has retained heidrick and struggles to help in this effort.

i will be participating in the search for my successor, and i will continue as ceo until the board selects a new ceo. once a successor is named, i will return to my previous role as chief yahoo and continue to serve as a director on the board.

last june, i accepted the board's request that i assume the ceo role to restructure and reposition the company as a whole in order to more effectively meet the fast-changing needs of both users and partners. since taking on the ceo role, i have had an ongoing dialogue with the board about succession timing. thanks in large measure to your tireless efforts, we have created a more open, competitive yahoo! and we believe the time is now right to transition to a new ceo who can take the company to the next level.

despite the external environment we face, the fact remains that yahoo! is now a significantly different company that is stronger in many ways than it was just 18 months ago. this only makes it all the more essential that we manage this opportunity to leverage the progress up to this point as effectively as possible. i strongly believe that having transformed our platform and better aligned costs and revenues, we have a unique window for the right ceo to take ownership over the next wave of mission-critical decisions facing the company.

all of you know that I have always, and will always bleed purple. i will always do what I think is right for this great company. while this step will be an adjustment for all of us, i know it's the right one. i look forward to updating you on this process as soon as the board has developments to share, and will continue to do everything i can to make yahoo! fulfill its full potential.

thank you,

jerry
 

I think I'm gonna make Monday promotion Monday for InternetNews.com. You can call it shameless self promotion if you have to but I really have to give a shout out about this week's InternetNews.com Week in Preview.

This week, the podcast, which we call iWIP for short,  is giving listeners some gems on the future of Microsoft's operating system, as well as why the latest "porn mode" privacy feature in Firefox may not be so private after all. Check it out!

Also, our Hot Topics section has a great roundup on the Social Web's evolution and the attempt to make some money from all those users generating content.

Don't miss the expectations around Windows 7 after Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference and its WinHec hardware conference and one of the most comprehensive roundups of stories about smartphone apps that have blossomed in the wake of the iPhone app stores. Just a few cool things that we offer in addition to the Latest News. It's a great way to get your Monday and your week kick started.