Palm Reviews

Pros

Good OS system, HP is now parent company, good engineers (hopefully) they will not leave Palm soon. Good Silicon Valley name

Cons

Terrible management - senior executives are rookies and truly screwed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Pretty bad strategic mindset. Horrendous communications with employees.

Advice to Senior Management

Replace senior executives. Be more agile and realistic. Stop thinking you are Apple. Be more humble. Be faster and understand realities of market

Pros

-challenging work in building up a new OS
-was fortunate to work with a great talented groups of developers
-the people are generally friendly and helpful

Cons

-the vision and direction got murky
-few of the managers actually know what they are doing
-a number of the really good people left to find new challenges, leaving the rest with more work and fewer qualified co-workers

Advice to Senior Management

-narrow down the roadmap and milestones
-train the new managers
-focus on quality, less on hitting hard dates with vague and changing feature sets

Pros

Palm is a small company (~950 people) so if you like a startup type environment it is a good fit.
Good exposure to different parts of the products that you may not get at a larger company.
Lots of opportunities to work with some really sharp people.

Cons

With the goods of a startup type environment there are also negatives. Process is lacking in multiple areas.

Frequent re-orgs and shift in responsibility can cause knowledge to be lost and do not foment an environment where you want to do something right to save yourself time in the future.

Advice to Senior Management

Fight to ensure that Palm remains as independent as possible in the merger with HP to keep the feel of the company the same.

Pros

Great focus on Engineering talent. People with technical skills are highly valued. People are passionate about shipping products that users will like.

Cons

High pressure environment. Feels like you are working 24/7. Limited resources.

Advice to Senior Management

Need to also focus on the ability to market and sell a product

Pros

They have so far shown that they are willing to innovate and make competitive products. They are not just sitting still. There's a sense of direction (more so than most other companies), and they are move forward (for better or for worse).

Cons

It's not too different from other companies i.e. there are also some big egos around the place (high and low). This makes it difficult to get real work done sometimes.

Advice to Senior Management

Learn about the strengths and weaknesses of your employees, and put their strengths to use. Too often, decisions are influenced by who talks the most, not necessarily who makes the most sense.

Pros

Management provides support to employees,

Cons

Indirect managers don't always want to give up their 'territories' and don't always respect conservative approaches taken to ensure no mistakes are made, yet provide positive and timely results. Instead they prefer to dictate from afar based on limited information without taking the advice of the 'boots on the ground'.

Advice to Senior Management

Don't jump to the first solution that presents itself without considering and planning for the things that might go wrong with that solution. Listen more to the people working at the locations where you are not regarding the efficiency of those operations. Don't assume you know what's going on if you haven't spent time at one of the other locations to witness how business is performed there.

Pros

Employees are really passionate and are willing to help each other out. There is lot of interaction between the teams and so employees get an insight into the different groups. The management does not interfere too much and allows the Managers to make the crucial decisions. Lot of smart people who are really interested in making a great product.

Cons

Small company with uncertain future. The management is in constant shuffle to get the right mix. The company is always competing with Apple rather than making its own stand.

Advice to Senior Management

More variety in smartphones and better advertising. More brand recognition needed to make sure that people can differentiate.

Pros

Culture is great. Work & life balance is great for me. There has been plenty of room for growth and there is always something new to do.

Cons

There aren't really too many downsides to working at Palm. Maybe it'd be better if they offered free lunch? Internal processes can be haggling at times.

Advice to Senior Management

The leadership team is doing a great job. Maybe there are too many high level management getting hired, and not enough worker bees.

Pros

Once to be the most famous inventor of handheld devices including PDA & Smartphone; it's proud to work for a global brand company like Palm.

Cons

Very very poor management; they set up local design center & recruited engineers BEFORE they had thorough business stretegy & plan, and dismiss few months later.

Advice to Senior Management

Think more before do it; never draw a big pie & give commitments to your employees before you really think about it.

Pros

Lots of potential to deliver more exciting services. Generally on the right track. Still a few innovative people around, who make work fun.

Cons

Management makes clumsy decisions. No communication between teams, everyone is working on assumptions. The New Palm and Old Palm people conflict. HR management is an utter disaster

Advice to Senior Management

Communicate with your employees. You still a few good ones left