Palm dump WinMo; Pre sales good but profits not

Palm have announced that they will be dropping Windows Mobile for future devices and instead focussing on their own platform, webOS.  The news was an unsurprising addition to the company's latest financial results, which also revealed that while Pre sales were strong – Palm saw a 134-percent increase in Q1 FY2010 smartphone sales from Q4 2009 – they still saw GAAP losses of $164.5m.

Palm have declined to break down exactly how many of the 823,000 handsets they've sold in Q1 were Pre devices, but according to the company the "vast majority" were of the newer smartphone.  Overall Palm made $2.8m gross profit on $68m in revenue.

Speaking on the investors' conference call after the results were published, Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein avoided commenting on the company's partnership with Sprint on the Palm Pixi rather than another carrier, together with suggesting that "you have to control the entire experience ... the OS and the services around it" when asked about Motorola's new MOTOBLUR sync software on the Android-based Motorola CLIQ (aka DEXT).  He also declined to make clear exactly when the next webOS update would arrive, only confirming that users should see "a steady stream" of features.

[via MyPre]