Palm to close retail stores
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Palm plans to close its retail stores in an effort to focus on fewer programs and better compete, the company said on Thursday.All of Palm&#39;s eight branded retail stores, as well as its 26 stores within Airport Wireless shops, will close.The move may stem from increased competition from Research In Motion&#39;s BlackBerry products. Prior to about a year ago, BlackBerry dominated the enterprise market and Palm was popular among prosumers, who typically buy devices in retail outlets, said Bill Hughes, an analyst at In-Stat. But since then, BlackBerry has grown more successful at selling its handhelds at retail, encroaching on Palm&#39;s traditional prosumer market, he said.The stores didn&#39;t make much sense for Palm from the beginning, according to Hughes. &quot;This doesn&#39;t really surprise me,&quot; he said. Usually, manufacturers open their own stores when their retail distribution strategy isn&#39;t working, he said. But Palm has reported a string of quarterly losses and may have decided to close the stores and boost its efforts to sell through other retail outlets as a way to cut costs.Palm said the store closings come as the company continues to focus on core business initiatives, consolidating resources behind fewer programs. For a similar reason, it&#160;cancelled its controversial smartphone companion product, the Foleo, that was scheduled for release in the middle of 2007.Palm has struggled over the past couple of years as the smartphone market grows increasingly crowded, and as it tries to phase out its PDA (personal digital assistant) business. The company is building a new Linux-based operating system that is scheduled to be released at the end of this year, with commercial products hitting the market shortly after. The software, which many thought would hit the market at the end of last year, will compete with&#160;Google&#39;s Android Linux-based smartphone operating system. Phones based on Android are expected to ship starting in the second half of this year.
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Teen fashion retailer The Wet Seal Inc. said Tuesday it plans to close around 150 stores and lay off about 2,000 employees as part of a strategy to cut costs.
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Circuit City Stores Inc., the nation's No. 2 consumer electronics retailer, said Thursday it plans to close seven domestic Superstores, a Kentucky distribution center and 62 company-owned stores in Canada to cut costs and improve its financial performance.
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Handheld maker says it will close down its Palm.Net wireless e-mail and Web service soon.
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New York retailing group Saks said Friday it will close 11 stores and shed 700 jobs. The company said it will close down eight Saks Fifth Avenue stores and three Off 5th Avenue
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(InfoWorld) - BenQ Mobile is closing down a handset facility in Taiwan amid an ongoing restructuring of its operations, calling reported plans to outsource production altogether "speculation." The closure of the facility is part of aÂ massive restructuring effortÂ parent company BenQ announced last month, after it failed to make good on a promise to turn around its financial performance in the second quarter. The company's mobile phone business has struggled ever since itÂ took over Siemens' loss-making mobile phone divisionÂ in a high profile deal last year. It also highlights cutthroat competition in the mobile phone industry as leaders such as Nokia and MotorolaÂ grab market share. The handset business had proved so tough for Siemens that it agreed to pay BenQ â¬250 million ($317 million) to take the ailing division off its hands. BenQ has posted losses for the three quarters that have passed since the deal was finalized. The Taiwanese handset facility will close by the end of this year, affecting over 100 workers. Foreign workers invited to Taiwan to work the factory floor will be sent home, while some Taiwanese workers will retire and others will be relocated to other BenQ factories, said Albert Lin, a communications officer at BenQ. The operation accounts for less than 10 percent of BenQ Mobile's handset production. "This is part of BenQ Mobile's plan to cut costs and increase efficiency," he said. He also called news reports from Germany, which say BenQ Mobile plans to sell or close all of its handset factories and farm production out to a contract manufacturer, "speculation," and refused further comment. It's the second series of layoffs announced by the mobile phone maker so far this year. In July, BenQ Mobile said it planned to cut 277 jobs at its facility in Munich, Germany, in addition to releasing 250 German contract employees that work offsite. BenQ Mobile's parent company, BenQ Corp., also said it planned to restructure its operations in an effort to increase cash available to finance BenQ Mobile as it struggles toward profitability. BenQ last month said it would split its name brand division and manufacturing operations into separate companies, a change that would not affect its mobile phone factories. BenQ Mobile planned to continue producing its own handsets due to the degree of customization required by network operators, among other reasons, Clemens Joos, CEO of BenQ Mobile, said at the time. BenQ Mobile faces an uphill battle to return to profitability, mainly because larger rivals have stepped up the competition and are grabbing market share from smaller companies in the industry. BenQ's share of the handset market dropped to 3.2 percent in the second quarter, from 4.8 percent the same time last year, according to market researcher Gartner. Meanwhile, Nokia's share rose to 33.6 percent from 31.6 percent, and Motorola's increased to 21.9 percent from 17.7 percent. Â
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Wal-Mart said it had ended the business because Hewlett-Packard, a chief technology partner, had decided to discontinue essential infrastructure for the service.
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Wal-Mart Canada will close one of its  two Quebec stores that won union certification last year after  failing to reach a labor agreement, the retailer said on  Wednesday.
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Bankrupt toy seller KB Toys Inc. said on Tuesday it plans to close 141 to 238 underperforming stores by the end of January as part of its reorganization effort.
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Staff at the first shop in the fashion and home furnishings chain Laura Ashley are told it is to close next month.
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Photographic retailer Jessops says it plans to close 81 of its High Street stores and cut 550 jobs.
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Circuit City Stores Inc. , the nation's number two consumer electronics retailer, said yesterday it plans to close seven domestic superstores, a Kentucky distribution center, and 62 company-owned stores in Canada to cut costs and improve its financial performance.
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Palm handhelds with the Palm OS aren't going anywhere anytime soon. The company has signed a perpetual licensing agreement with the operating system's owners, Access Systems Americas.
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Retail stores owned by Apple will be closed from 2PM to 6PM on Friday, prior to the iPhone's release.
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Palm has laid off "a small percentage" of its workforce, largely in its development group.
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Business & money: The owner of retail chains including Currys and PC World is to stop selling analogue television sets
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Palm's CEO says the company has made a last-minute decision to not ship its Foleo smart phone companion.