New Palm? Old Stupidity!

It was truly startling.

Ed Colligan had delivered on his boast that Palm had “game-changing hardware” with the Pre.

Palm, a company whose software was so damned good that it created addictions in people (one of them being me), had finally come out of the wilderness with the New New Thing.

After some initial skepticism, I finally grokked it and wanted it.

So much so that I did something I said I’d never do: create a blog around a product. This blog.

And although time constraints caused me to put it on hold, my enthusiasm for the Pre never wavered.

If anything, once I saw that Garnet emulation would be available, I was All Systems Go for it.

Palm seemed to be doing Everything Right too.

Until today, when they apparently revealed that within their heart, the Old Palm remains.

The Old Palm that treated its users with contempt, with condescension, with something almost like outright malice.

Today several disturbing tweets appeared in my stream regarding the PreDevCamp that had been percolating for several months.

I think the key post is this one, with these prime excerpts:

We have now developed a theme at Palm… “why would you do this if we’re not paying you to?” Each time, I have to explain that the event is not about Palm. It’s about the community. The brand is a vehicle to rally a number of like-minded people around, but it’s not the reason for the event. We do this because we want to build community, connections, cool products, make great software, solve problems, meet new friends.

Emphasis added by me.

Also:

In my opinion, Pam could not have been more short-sighted, condescending or dismissive of the community if she were coached beforehand by Chuq. If the intent of introducing Pam to the conversation was to get us to simmer down it didn’t work. Her call with whurely and subsequent email had the effect of throwing kerosene on an open flame. Clearly, Palm doesn’t get it. Why they even created the positions of community and developer managers is beyond me at this point.

Emphasis added by me.

And fatally, this:

I love the community as evidenced to the dozens of events I’ve created and co-organized over the past several years. I have a bitter taste in my mouth for the Palm brand now. I’m going to grab a mint and sit this one out. I want no part of building a brand that has such contempt for the influencers and developers that want to support it from the ground up.

Emphasis added by me.

This is the behavior of Old Palm.

With an absolute vengeance.

It’s as if after months of acting sane, these people could no longer stand the strain of the pretense and finally snapped, revealing their true souls.

I’ve been through this before.

I put up with it for years, but I’ll be damned if I’ll go through it again.

On June 6th, I will not be there to buy a Palm Pre.

Apparently there is only one way to tell any group of people that what they’ve done is unacceptable as a business practice — and that’s to hit them back in their business.

I’m really shocked by this turn of events.

Up to now, Palm had been just about flawless in its dealings. I had no criticisms to offer.

How they could do this with the Finish Line in sight has to rank as one of the biggest business blunders of the year.

I have to ask myself: If this is how Palm treats its supporters, how will it treat its customers?