Palm up for sale!

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theeedude

theeedude

Lifer
Feb 5, 2006
35,787
6,197
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http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=arvXvuu.DqW4

April 12 (Bloomberg) -- Palm Inc., creator of the Pre smartphone, put itself up for sale and is seeking bids for the company as early as this week, according to three people familiar with the situation.

The company is working with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Frank Quattrone’s Qatalyst Partners to find a buyer, said the people, who declined to be identified because the sale isn’t public. Taiwan’s HTC Corp. and China’s Lenovo Group Ltd. have looked at the company and may make offers, said the people.
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This is huge. If HTC buys Palm, it gets patents to counter-sue Apple with. Not sure what happens if Apple buys Palm, or if FTC would even approve such a transaction given Apple's recent arguably anti-competitive behavior.
 
zerocool84

zerocool84

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
36,041
472
126
I really hope it's HTC. HTC makes awesome quality handsets and Palm makes the awesome OS that is WebOS. Put both of those together and hopefully it should turn out awesome since WebOS actually needs some decent hardware to run on for once.
 
T

TheWart

Diamond Member
Dec 17, 2000
5,219
1
76
I am holding out for FusionGarage to buy them....webOS on joojoo baby!!


haha
 
Phobic9

Phobic9

Golden Member
Apr 6, 2001
1,822
0
71
TheWart said:
I am holding out for FusionGarage to buy them....webOS on joojoo baby!!


haha
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Poor JooJoo. :(

Of course my preference would be for Google to snatch up Palm and integrate some of their WebOS tech into Android. The Palm name does have some (not much) value behind it so I doubt that it'll disappear completely once someone buys them up. Well, not for a while at least.

I could honestly see Lenovo buying them though.
 
S

Slick5150

Diamond Member
Nov 10, 2001
8,760
3
81
I'd be on board for some HTC handsets running WebOS. But HTC is so heavily invested in Android I don't know if I see that happening anytime soon.
 
DivideBYZero

DivideBYZero

Lifer
May 18, 2001
24,117
2
0
Prediction:

Apple will never buy Palm. They don't buy in tech, they prefer to develop and own from conception.

HTC will pass, too heavily invested in WinMo and Android

RIM will pass. OS6 too close.

Lenovo/other chinese tech company or others such as Dell wishing to get a jumpstart to their mobile business will buy.
 
notposting

notposting

Diamond Member
Jul 22, 2005
3,498
33
91
Would love to see Moto buy them. Motorola can make some decent hardware, but the software has always been iffy depending on the carrier and this motoblur crap holding back android upgrades is crap (what, a couple effin widgets means you get stuck on 1.5 or 1.6? really?).

Some Moto's running webos would be sweet.

edit: in the real world this will never happen what with Moto wanting to dump its phone division anyway.
 
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tatteredpotato

Diamond Member
Jul 23, 2006
3,934
0
76
I would like to see HTC or Google buy Palm just to help keep the Apple lawsuits at bay.

If HTC bought Palm I could foresee them selling/spinning off the WebOS part so that they would have the patent portfolio of Palm, but wouldn't have to maintain on operating system (not HTC's forte).
 
Gooberlx2

Gooberlx2

Lifer
May 4, 2001
15,381
6
91
ObscureCaucasian said:
If HTC bought Palm I could foresee them selling/spinning off the WebOS part so that they would have the patent portfolio of Palm, but wouldn't have to maintain on operating system (not HTC's forte).
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I agree with this. Engadget's article supporting an HTC buyout had some good points, but I think it didn't really address that HTC is primarily a hardware company. I dunno how much desire they'll have to competitively maintain WebOS.

Personally, I'd like to see Google buy them up. Not only because they'll get the patents (and doesn't that throw the Apple monkey off HTC's back too?), but also because I think they'd have the sense to take some of the great ideas that WebOS implements and integrate them with Android.
 
her209

her209

No Lifer
Oct 11, 2000
56,336
11
0
Gooberlx2 said:
I agree with this. Engadget's article supporting an HTC buyout had some good points, but I think it didn't really address that HTC is primarily a hardware company. I dunno how much desire they'll have to competitively maintain WebOS.

Personally, I'd like to see Google buy them up. Not only because they'll get the patents (and doesn't that throw the Apple monkey off HTC's back too?), but also because I think they'd have the sense to take some of the great ideas that WebOS implements and integrate them with Android.
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Or HTC could buy Palm and then sell webOS to Google.
 
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tatteredpotato

Diamond Member
Jul 23, 2006
3,934
0
76
It's sad because it's a nice OS, but I think WebOS needs to die... The market it already incredibly crowded with iPhone OS, Android, Blackberry, WebOS, and WinMo, and WebOS is the one with the least corporate backing.

I do agree that Google would be another good fit, they could protect themselves and the other Android partners from Apple lawsuits, and be free to integrate some of the better WebOS features into Android (such as the WebOS notification system).
 
B

basslover1

Golden Member
Aug 4, 2004
1,921
0
76
DivideBYZero said:
Prediction:

Apple will never buy Palm. They don't buy in tech, they prefer to develop and own from conception.

HTC will pass, too heavily invested in WinMo and Android

RIM will pass. OS6 too close.

Lenovo/other chinese tech company or others such as Dell wishing to get a jumpstart to their mobile business will buy.
Click to expand...


Didn't Lenovo recently buy back their mobile phone division? Would be a smart move on their part IMO.
 
C

ChAoTiCpInOy

Diamond Member
Jun 24, 2006
6,442
1
81
Apple isn't buying into tech. They wouldn't buy Palm for their technology. They want the patents in their fight against HTC. Apple has $40 billion in cash reserve. Palm's market cap is a little above $1 billion. I don't think it would be hard for Apple to buy Palm.
 
R

randomlinh

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
20,846
2
0
linh.wordpress.com
ChAoTiCpInOy said:
Apple isn't buying into tech. They wouldn't buy Palm for their technology. They want the patents in their fight against HTC. Apple has $40 billion in cash reserve. Palm's market cap is a little above $1 billion. I don't think it would be hard for Apple to buy Palm.
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This was the plan all along. Apple secretly got Rubenstein to head Palm so they could buy them out down the road. Hellllooo patent portfolio!
 
T

tatteredpotato

Diamond Member
Jul 23, 2006
3,934
0
76
randomlinh said:
This was the plan all along. Apple secretly got Rubenstein to head Palm so they could buy them out down the road. Hellllooo patent portfolio!
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If HTC is interested in Palm, Apple might be wise to make bids if not to simply raise the price HTC has to pay. It's win/win for Apple because if they win the lawsuit they gain control of some nice patents and if they lose they make HTC pay more for those patents.
 
ElFenix

ElFenix

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Mar 20, 2000
102,397
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i'd like to see RIM buy them, but it sounds like that's not happening.

i'm not sure HTC has the desire or ability to be in the software side of things.
 
zerocool84

zerocool84

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
36,041
472
126
ElFenix said:
i'd like to see RIM buy them, but it sounds like that's not happening.

i'm not sure HTC has the desire or ability to be in the software side of things.
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ObscureCaucasian said:
I had the same thought until I read an article today stating HTC has been contemplating designing their own operating system.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/13/htc-continues-to-assess-developing-its-own-smartphone-os-palm/
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Phobic9 said:
Well they may actually be looking to make their own OS afterall.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/13/htc-continues-to-assess-developing-its-own-smartphone-os-palm/
Click to expand...

They already make Sense UI so it's certainly feasible that they'd want their own true OS.
 
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