09.15.07

Will Palm show their hand?

Posted in Language Fun at 11:32 am by Athol

With Palm politely announcing they are canceling their $10 million Follyo (I mean Foleo) it got me to thinking about their name and logo again. Doesn’t the name Palm seem a bit naked standalone, but powerful when coupled with a product name? In fact, that was the original idea for Palm Computing and the great name Palm Pilot. Of course, that was until Pilot Pens stood up and said “Hey wait a minute. That is our name and brand.”

So today we have the Palm Treo instead. How come their hand only has 3 fingers? Are they slightly handicapped? But I’m OK, as you can see in the logo here, My Palm has 5 fingerprints.

And shouldn’t they have named the company Palms? Especially for a high volume product they are trying to get into the hands of many consumers? Then the casino in Las Vegas could have been at Palm.com instead. After all, there is only one, even though it has a trio of leaves. Must be the same 3 fingered designer!

While Palm was the first commercially successful PDA (Personal Device Assistant aka Pretty Darn Awkward) product company, somewhere along the line as they went through yet another management change, they came up with a new logo. In high resolution and properly rendered it has a nice orange 3D look. But what were/are they trying to tell us. Oranges grow on palm trees. No? Must be to caution investors. Not yet red, but not green either. And nothing to do with hands anymore.