The folks at Palm’s have just released preliminary results for what they consider the third quarter (which ends in February). The release contains a few interestring tidbits – full text below, emphasis by yours truly:
SUNNYVALE, Calif., Mar 03, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Palm, Inc. (Nasdaq:PALM) today reported preliminary results for its third quarter of fiscal year 2009, which ended Feb. 27, 2009.
The company announced that it expects to report revenues for the third quarter of fiscal year 2009 in the range of $85 million to $90 million. The revenue declines vs. the company’s second quarter of fiscal year 2009 and third quarter of fiscal year 2008 are the result of reduced demand for Palm’s maturing legacy smartphone products, the challenging economic environment and later-than-expected shipments of the Treo(TM) Pro in the United States. The company expects declining revenues and continued margin pressure from its legacy product lines in the fiscal fourth quarter.
“The much-anticipated launch of the Palm(R) Pre(TM) remains on track for the first half of calendar year 2009, but as expected we’ve got a difficult transition period to work through,” said Palm President and Chief Executive Officer Ed Colligan. “Despite the challenging market environment, the extraordinary response to the Palm Pre and the new Palm webOS(TM) reaffirms our confidence in our long-term prospects and our ability to reestablish Palm as the leading innovator in the growing smartphone market.”
Palm stated that cash used in operations for the quarter is expected to be between $95 million and $100 million. The company’s cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments balance is expected to be between $215 million and $220 million at the end of the third quarter.
Although Palm believes it has sufficient cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments to meet its working capital needs under its current operating plan, the company intends to strengthen its working capital position given the challenging economic environment and the opportunity to drive both the launch of the Palm Pre and future product-development efforts. The company is currently evaluating options in this regard, including the exercise of its right to direct the remarketing of a portion of the common shares underlying the Series C preferred stock and warrant units owned by Elevation Partners. Palm is entitled to retain any net profits realized from such remarketing.
Separately, Palm indicated that since it expects to periodically provide new software features free of charge to customers of its Palm webOS products, including the recently announced Palm Pre, it will recognize the revenues and cost of revenues associated with Palm webOS product sales on a straight-line basis over the product’s estimated economic life of 24 months. The company will be recording deferred revenues and deferred cost of revenues on its balance sheet, and amortizing them into earnings on a straight-line basis over the estimated economic product life of 24 months. The company will continue to expense engineering, sales and marketing costs as they are incurred. This accounting treatment will have no impact on cash flow. A more detailed discussion of this accounting treatment can be found on Palm’s Investor Relations website at http://investor.palm.com.
As of now, no further information is available – stay tuned for further info as we get it!
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