Palm Among 12 Major Brands That Will Disappear By Next Year? 55

24/7 Wall Street's Douglas A. McIntyre is speculating that Palm will be among a number of well-known brands that will disappear before the end of next year.

First McIntyre mentions some other well-known brands that have vanished in the past year due to the bad economy, such as Circuit City, ATA and Aloha airlines, and Gateway Computers (bought out by Acer). I remember how shocked I was to learn that Circuit City was going away. In the small area where I live, Circuit City has always been a major source for people's electronic needs. Of course, then came Best Buy and Staples, and I even started shopping in the other places. I can drive to Staples in like 10 minutes compared to the 25 minute drive to Circuit City and Best Buy. Even though I was shocked about the demise of Circuit City, I could understand how it happened. Just like so many of our home town stores have been put out of business by Walmart's arrival.

But anyway, 24/7 Wall St. talks about how more companies will be closing and more brands will vanish as the recession deepens. 24/7 Wall St. looked at 100 brands that are facing troubled futures.

From the article:

"The analysis included records for those brands that are public companies or part of public companies. We considered sales information, information from industry experts, and brand histories. We also looked at the level of competition in each brand’s market and the extent to which that competition is growing. We examined the likelihood that a brand could be sold or spun off in cases where parent companies are in financial trouble."

Palm was listed at #10 out of the 12 brands. Some of the other brands are Avis/Budget, Borders, Crocs, and Saturn.

Among the reasons cited for Palm's possible demise are that the Pre is Palm's one last chance to become viable, recent research shows that hardly anyone who owns an iPhone or BlackBerry will switch to the Pre, meaning that Palm will need to expand the market to get shares for the new Pre during a recession. Another reason mentioned is that Sprint, the number 3 US carrier which has been bleeding subscribers for awhile, will have exclusivity to the Pre.

"..The bottom line is that Palm has no chance of getting an even modest part of the smartphone market in a severe economic downturn since it competes with two of the premier technology companies in the world—Apple and RIM. Palm won’t be in business in a year."

Well, I can't see that far into the future, but if Palm would get on the ball with their advertising campaign and sell the Pre at a decent price, and hurry up and release the Pre, I could see them moving ahead into the future with many other great WebOS devices.

I know that Sprint has put out 3 different  "Now" commercials and have been advertising in newspapers. I've seen all the commercials and Sprint only sort of hints at the Pre visually. Most people out there who don't follow smartphones like all of you reading this probably won't even notice the Pre phone at the end of the commercials. We notice it because we're anxiously waiting for Palm to release it so we can get our hands on it. We also notice the Pre in everyone's hands even though it's hard to tell that they're holding a Pre at times. To the average TV watcher, even if they notice the Pre, it's most likely just another phone to them. Plus, I personally know many people who hate all commercials, and they mute the television or purposely leave the room during commercials. Those people won't even see the ads. I doubt if the percentage of those folks is all that high though.

I'm ready for Sprint to advertise the "Pre" itself and get the show on the road. The Pre has so much going for it, and if people could start seeing all the great features of the Pre in Sprint television ads and newspaper ads, more and more people would be attracted to it.

I was hoping that Howard Stern's short time with the Pre would benefit Palm and Sprint, but that sure didn't happen. He chose the Bold because of Lotus Notes. What a dumb reason. And besides, the Pre will be able to sync with Lotus Notes, via the forthcoming 3rd party CompanionLink software. The Bold is great. I got to use the Bold during our Round Robin last year and fell in love with it. But look at the Bold,... and take a look at the Pre. The Pre wins by a country mile in my opinion from what I've seen and heard so far.

The Electricpig also talks about the 24/7 Wall Street article. Toby Knight says that 24/7 Wall Street echoes last week's Motley Fool article, picking Palm as one of the 12 brands to disappear by 2010.

The 24/7 Wall Street article reminds me of an article Annie wrote last year over at our sister site TreoCentral, in which she reported on a Time.com story about Palm being included in a list of 140 U.S. companies that Standard & Poor's said are in danger of not being able to pay their bills in the next few months.

You can read the full 24/7 Wall Street article here.

Do you think Palm will be among those 12 brands to disappear? Will the Pre be Palm's savior?

Thanks to AtomicAgeZombie and Paul for the tips!