This was a truly amazing year in the world of Treo. How amazing? Let’s look back at previous years. It could be argued that 2004 was the year of the Treo 600 and 2005 was the year of the Treo 650. Now look at 2006. Palm gave us five new Treos: 700w, 700p, 680, 750v, the 700wx and the 680. Okay, so maybe one of them hasn’t gotten out of the blocks yet (the Treo 750v has been delayed) and another hasn’t hit its stride (the 680 wasn’t available until late November), but otherwise there were Treos everywhere for everyone—consumers and corporate citizens. This last quarter, Palm announced record sell-through of Treos too.

I guess you could call 2006 the year Palm put their smartphone stake firmly in the ground. There may be competitors coming out of the woodwork (RIM’s BlackBerry, Motorola’s Q and a slew of others), but it’s really clear that Palm has dug in and is ready to do battle on a number of fronts.

So let’s talk about the year that was. Let’s talk Treo!

We started 2006 with the announcement none of us ever thought we’d hear… that a Treo was being released that ran on the Microsoft Windows Mobile platform.

At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) last January, Palm announced the Treo 700w and then went on the road with Microsoft to promote the new addition to the family. This was written about in the Mr. Palm 700w Goes to Redmond piece that appeared in February.

Also in February, Palm announced a 2 for 1 stock split that would bring the number of shares outstanding to more than 100 million, to help the company "align its capital structure to that of companies with comparable revenue."

In early March, BlackBerry’s parent, Research in Motion (RIM) settled the NTP patent infringement lawsuit for a whopping $612 million. They skirted disaster (a shut down of the popular wireless e-mail service for its 3 million users). During the months where things were a bit unsettled, Palm managed to make some inroads on the corporate side.

It’s Your Birthday…

At the end of March, Palm celebrated…

It was their birthday and the world of Treo celebrated Palm’s 10 years of existence.

The joy of EVDO and a bunch of other great features had people inside and outside the Treo community raving.

By the end of May, an opponent stepped in the ring as Motorola tried its hand at the smartphone game with its cool looking Q ( Hey, as a sibling to the RAZR, it had to be cool). The world of Treo watched the price point (under $200) as a potential threat. But its lack of touch screen made it hardly the contender it initially seemed.

After a quiet summer of customer win news, Palm hit the ground running with several new products:

Another Windows Mobile version, the Treo 700wx was announced for the Sprint network. Rumor has it that the “x” was for extra memory – twice that of its sibling Verizon’s Treo 700w.

That announcement was followed up with one for the Europe-bound, antenna-less Treo 750v which also runs Windows Mobile.

It is the first Treo smartphone to take advantage of Vodafone's 3G/UMTS network. The plan was to roll it out to Vodafone customers in the following countries: Austria, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and other regions by the end of the calendar year. I say, “was” because we later learned that due to production problems, the schedule ended up slipping.

Perhaps the biggest “buzz inducer” was the announcement of the Treo 680 in four "flavors."

The price was right (Under $200. Free with activation). It was obvious that this consumer-oriented Treo was aimed at Moto’s Q and other entry-level smartphones. But this one ran the proven (and loved) Palm OS operating system and worked on Cingular’s network (Hello GSM!).

So while the world awaited the arrival of the Treo 680, NTP decided to make things interesting by dropping a lawsuit on Palm.

That one’s still up in the air.

The Treo 680 finally arrived at Cingular stores on Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving). Palm announced it the day before the holiday which triggered a big time rant from me. Why bury the news?

Right before the holidays, Palm reported results for their second quarter (FY2007) that ended on December 1. The highlight was the record high sell-through of Treos (617,000 units up 42% YoY—Year Over Year). Most of the media outlets glommed onto the revenue shortfall due to the delay of the 750v. But I decided to walk on the sunny side of the street.

Yeah, yeah… you know where I was headed. In fact, you’re probably singing it in your head right now so I don’t even need to write it.

Anyway, in closing, I’d say that Palm is well positioned for 2007. And if they are smart, they won’t let their guard down. And if they are really, really smart, they’ll steal a page from Apple’s playbook and come up with an even better industrial design (Yes…It’s time for Palm to "bring sexy back").

That’s a wrap! Enjoy your New Year’s holiday!

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