Apple and RIM almost bought Palm...

[TheWart]

Interesting read...

* Apple was mostly interested in Palm's huge library of intellectual property and patents (450+ patents on file, another 400+ applications on file). And unlike some other bidders, Apple even seemed committed to funding Palm's operations, perhaps to challenge RIM's dominance in the keyboarded segment of the smartphone industry, our source says. (There's a bunch of problems with this idea, such as the idea of Apple supporting two rival app platforms, but that's what this person says.) Ultimately, Apple didn't bid high enough, while HP offered an amount the board couldn't say no to. (Recall that Steve Jobs tried to buy Palm years ago in its first life, too, when it was owned by 3Com.)

* RIM basically had the deal in its hands and "had to work incredibly hard to blow it," our source recalls. RIM initially came in higher than HP, but HP upped its bid, our source says.

* Google, likely interested in Palm's intellectual property, supposedly only wanted it because Google thought Apple might want it. But Google supposedly didn't know Apple was actually bidding for Palm, so it didn't proceed.

* Nokia, bizarrely, wasn't anywhere near the deal. That may prove to be a stupid move, which we'll expand on later.

 

[preslove]

edit, oops.

 

[zerocool84]

I honestly thought Apple or HTC or someone else would have bought them just for the patents. I'm still kinda sad that HP got them.

 

[TheWart]

I honestly thought Apple or HTC or someone else would have bought them just for the patents. I'm still kinda sad that HP got them.

Let's hope that HP actually uses what Palm has. If Apple bought them, I think we would have seen a handful of WebOS features integrated into iOS, but with HP owning Palm we may now see a full WebOS tablet....so it might turn out to be good for competition.

 

[preslove]

Let's hope that HP actually uses what Palm has. If Apple bought them, I think we would have seen a handful of WebOS features integrated into iOS, but with HP owning Palm we may now see a full WebOS tablet....so it might turn out to be good for competition.

One can only hope. On the other hand, they've been bleeding Palm employees since the merger. Palm's WebOS team might just end up being a talent estuary that developed a tone of awesome engineers, who then took their skills to other companies. Time will tell.

 

[Bateluer]

Personally, I hold no love for HP would rather have seen Palm bought by RIM, HTC, or Google. Google did get some of their top engineers and designers though. And RIM could have used their experience with BbOS.