Pros

Friendly co-workers, some forward thinkers.

Cons

Extremely disorganized, bad management, poor planning with product releases.

Advice to Senior Management

Managers should allow for more transparency within the company. Timelines should be better planned to allow sufficient time for scheduled projects.

Pros

got stuck caz of recession , other wise left long time agao

Cons

you will hate your self for being at palm

Advice to Senior Management

kick out the middle management , lot of poitlics, no body cares about the project results .. to much of attitude.

Pros

The company finally has a product that one can be proud of again. A lot of the new hires from Apple and elsewhere have created a New Palm with energy and excitement out of a company that was a bit sleepy in the past.

Cons

There are still parts of the Old Palm around with mediocre, uninspired management.

It's refreshing visiting the New Palm. People seem to be excited about their work. They're informed as to what is happening around them. They have technical seminars about interesting topics. And judging from the books in their library, management is at least aware of current methods in software project management.

Old Palm is about just doing the job or putting out the current fire. There is no vision for the organization past the next deliverable on the schedule. No desire to get better at what the organization does. Managers were put in place because they had "hard" technical skills, not because they had any aptitude for managing. So you have managers who don't communicate, don't know how to plan and manage a project, and have no idea how to manage people. It is not uncommon to hear people moaning about "they don't know what's going on".

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to evaluate and clean up the lower level managers and get the entire company's culture going in the direction you've established with the New Palm. Train people if they're missing some skills. But get the people who don't have the aptitude for managing out like you did before. It's only going to cost you in the long run.

Pros

Boundless future potential. A company filled with smart, hardworking, energetic people.

Cons

Intensity, stress, and lots of hours in the office at present

Advice to Senior Management

Definitely on the right track!

Pros

The leadership team is committed to bringing Palm back to the forefront of innovation within the Silicon Valley

Cons

There is a lot to do and we are understaffed

Advice to Senior Management

Stay focused. Communicate to the employees more about what you need from them.

Pros

Palm is an entrepreneurial company that fostered an entire industry with it's Palm Pilot PDA. It had an initial lead in the smartphone space, but has floundered a bit. There are still great ideas, but at times the execution suffers. There is a gradual changing of the guard within senior management that should lead to better execution, but it will take time.

Cons

The extroverted sales culture that values ideas has been a disadvantage when it comes to execution of products. Sometimes those that don't fit into the culture are dissatisfied with promotions.

Advice to Senior Management

Promote talent and those that execute.

Pros

Working with high end technology, great customers and peers.

Cons

Poor leadership never clearly specify expectations or goals. Held onto a failed product strategy long after is was disproven. Very poor product quality, failure to deliver on basic functionality required by customers.

Advice to Senior Management

Gain a better understand your distribution channels and how to manage them. Get better control over product quality, never again release a product that does not work 100%.

Pros

Hot new development. Former rock star company. Encouraging potential.

Palm has been through roughly three big phases. Early, they were rock star innovative, extremely well known, with killer products. Later, they grew fat and complacent, fell behind in the market, survived by buying out their most direct competition, and let product quality plummet. Current refinancing gives them the ability to produce a fresh product. Both financing and interest exist. Engineering team is good, although perhaps a bit flaky. There's a brief opportunity right now to participate in making what could be a key turning point for the company.

Cons

Cronyism. Weak vision and marketing. It's not clear that the product or approach they're taking are sufficiently innovative, that product quality is a sufficient priority, nor that timing of delivery will hit well. There's a lot of unknown right now and for all that, there's still a curious level of risk being taken and an odd perspective on vision.

Advice to Senior Management

Senior management needs to coordinate itself a little better. I'm not seeing much evidence of teamwork in upper engineering management.

Pros

Excellent individual-contributors and a passion for improving the customers' lives through outstanding products. Camaraderie and support from colleagues that makes this a special place to work and grow.

Cons

Disconnected sense of fiscal and customer reality exhibited from the highest levels of the company that often lead to impractical or impossible expectations for product delivery time lines. Products need to be launched when ready, not when the market dictates and only by building a successful team, motivating them and allowing them to do their jobs will success follow.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to focus on improving core product functionality and performance with less attention to outside distractions that promise much but fail to deliver such as services and add-ons.

Pros

fun and intelligent people.
good atmosphere between employees.
Renewed management with new clearer directions from a product perspective (technically) and from a management perspective.

Cons

unless you're connected, you cant go up the ladder
up until recently stale product development
For "old" employees, burned out seems to be common... and then new people are hired to replace or supplement their lack of energy and interest. Not a lot of confidence in old management.
For employees that have been there, it is sometime difficult to push new ideas; however, the same ideas coming from new employees are accepted almost immediately (that's good for the new people).

Advice to Senior Management

clarify your goals very well and deliver *all* the time. Make sure you manage continuous education of your employees. keep email communication short and cut through the problems and politics quickly.