Treonauts Memory Survey Results

Well, our Treo Memory Survey has now surpassed 500 respondents which I am told apparently makes it - without a doubt - a complete and 'statistically valid' survey.

So, aside from the survey having provived us with a very interesting overview of who Treonauts are and how they go about using their Treo, what did we learn about their specific feelings towards the memory issue?

For starters I admit that it was extremely surprising to see that almost three quarters (68%) of respondents considered that it is "Very important" for palmOne to upgrade the memory to 64MB on the Treo 650.  A little over a quarter (27%) of respondents further answered that it was "Somewhat important" while those who voted "Not important at all" or "Not sure" were an absolute minority with only 5%.  Combined, the number of respondents who therefore consider the memory issue to be at least "Important" is a staggering 95%.

Following on this, over half of respondents (54%) consider the amount of memory currently built-in on their Treo smartphone to be "Not adequate" (23%) or "Barely adequate" (31%) while only 9% voted that it was "Very adequate".  This response alone indicates a very strong negative sentiment towards the existing 32MB of memory on the Treo 600 and 650 and further supports our recommendation that palmOne should address it at the earliest.

Furthermore, although 60% of respondents stated that they are currently using their SD card to run applications a combined 67% consider their experience managing this process to be "Somewhat annoying" (53%) or "Very annoying" (14%).  The fact that they typically have to search/buy/install/manage a separate application to do this probably adds to the sentiment. 

Also, considering that 84% of respondents have had previous experience with a PalmOS device it should be worrying to palmOne that such a high proportion of its experienced users should still have reason to complain about running applications from an SD card when, in contrast, only 35% of respondents have something mildly negative to say about installing applications for example.

One very strong and positive point for palmOne in the survey however has been the overall satisfaction rating that users have towards their Treo.  When asked about their current Treo smartphone experience, a full 51% of respondents stated that they "Love it!" while another 37% stated that "It's great".  The combined 88% positive response rate should encourage palmOne to make the right decision about the memory today in order to secure a strong future for the company tomorrow. 

The ball is firmly in palmOne's court and the company will now have to choose between 'negotiating' with its customer base on a transaction basis (short-term gain - do nothing so as to increase or retain margins) or relationship basis (long-term gain - ensure strong and loyal customer base for future revenues).  As Jan Carlzon stated in his book this is one of those "Moments of Truth" and Treonauts will undoubtedly be curious to see how it plays. 

Treonauts prefer to build long-term relationships...