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Palm Reportedly Places Company Up for Sale

Tailpike1153 said:
How about Nokia picks up Palm? WebOS would give them a boost in the smartphone market. What is Nokia's current OS? Meemi or moomoo? (Not making fun of Nokia. I just can't remember the name of its OS.) If Nokia got Palm, it could focus about its portfolio and find a settlement with Apple over the infringement charges. Just a thought.
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Maemo and Symbian
 
I thought the Palm Pre was doing quite well, even though I think it's a cheap and laggy phone, but many people seemed to like it.
 
My only surprise is this didn't happen sooner. While I'm sure the fantastic launch of the iPhone hit Palm's Treo line hard, IMO their fall is more internal than anything else.

IMO, there was never a proper replacement for the founding pair of Jeff Hawkins and Donna Dubinski after they left day to day management of the company. The Treo 650 was said to be the last Palm development that Hawkins personally managed. Many consider this the "last great Palm device" before things started to spiral out of control.

After Jeff and Donna went on to other ventures (Numenta et. al.) many consider several MBAs and accountants who didn't not have the depth of experience nor perception of technical talent come in and compromise the company. This new executive group was mostly business theory generalists that followed management fads such as then post-Y2K outsourcing of engineering talent, manufacturing part reduction for maximization of profit, trendy industrial design, ignoring third party developer consistency and not to mention obscene executive bonuses for their accounting tricks.

From that, Apple comes in doing it right with very very sharp executives that go against the MBA trends under Jobs maverick leadership style. They deliver a product it would take years to educate an MBA on the strategic importance of keeping high internal engineering and long term relationship manufacturing costs high blow the crap out of the smartphone market. The Treo looses significant market share in less than a year and even Nokia is left wondering how they moved in so well and so quickly.

From that Palm just sits stunned trying to go the new "iPhone way" that was just defined by doing a "me too" device with their own internal OS. However, the follow through is short not to mention being very late to market. Finally, an near total abandonment of their legacy OS to their home grown third party developer base hoping the next generation of programmers will replace most of these developer whom are in their 30s and 40s now does not follow through.

I'm not even going to start on the webOS exclusive "cloud computing" angle since others will bring that up for sure.

I can only think of what Jeff and Donna are talking about over morning coffee at the Numenta offices this morning.
 
Apple buy Palm

I don't own stock in either company but Love Palm and Apple. If Apple bought Palm I would feels as excited as Christmas day. The patents would be what I want Apple to a acquire Palm for. I would great positive effect on future iPhone development in my opinion.
 
I've had 3 palmos devices, a palm iiie, a Sony Clie sl10 and a palm tx. The palm tx was really disapointing, on paper it sounded good, bluetooth, wifi, sd slot and a 480x320 display, but using it for browsing was a horrible experience. The browser (and the rest of the OS) just hadn't developed. I had no inclination to return to palm after I got an iPhone. Would like to see someone buying it and making a success of it, but I won't hold my breath.
 
baryon said:
I thought the Palm Pre was doing quite well, even though I think it's a cheap and laggy phone, but many people seemed to like it.
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Palm has been in deep trouble for awhile now. At shareholder meetings they reported units shipped and never units sold. Meanwhile no one was buying the Pre and the market became flooded with Pres which retail channel couldn't get rid of. That's why you can go online and buy a Palm Pre for $25 with a contract.

Some people theorize they may be operating in debt now.
 
rwilliams said:
No, it's not the same principle. I may root for an opponent to lose a particular game, but I'm not rooting for their franchise to fold. Big difference. Just as I may hope that the iPhone, EVO, etc. does better than the Pre, but I wouldn't wish for Palm to get to the point of needing to be sold. People's livelihoods are greatly affected whenever something like this happens. It's about more than just the gadgets.
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While I share opinion that there is room for multiple companies to do well, I think it is a little naive to think the brand of capitalism we have in the US is all about solidarity and fair play. There are big time investors and people on the floor of the stock market buying stocks of one company, knowing another is failing and hoping they got it right as one companies failure helps the other.

On a more personal level, the average citizen is willing to live on an un-level playing field to their own benefit everyday. People say all sorts of things without really having thought about what they are saying. I hear all the time complaints about illegal aliens and foreign labor taking jobs away. Yet we live in a consumer economy. We don't produce anything in this nation really (except for weapons). How many people are willing to honestly say they are so concerned about their fellow citizens that they would prefer to pay higher prices for electronics and their newly constructed houses in order to employ skilled American labor? Not many sadly. Our consumer economy is all about finding sources of money for consumers to borrow and give it to underpaid labor abroad or here illegally. The inequality drives the economy with the profit going to a few at the top as the money changes hands. And the complaints are few because its been so long since most people here had manufacturing jobs to be concerned about. And most people would prefer to keep prices low on everything for cheap consumption than get a job in manufacturing instead of the service/consumer industry.

Our society is not truly capitalistic. It is a leverage of inequality about the globe creating cheap labor on one side and consumers on the other. The only problem is when the credit runs dry. Then the "fix" is to find new sources of credit. For those who are making money as CEO's and big time stock investors, it is in fact a sporting event and the stakes are high. While you and I may not intentionally desire the demise of a company for enormous profit, we are part of the economic system that drives the world. There are many who are ignorant of the problems the service/consumer driven economy of ours is causing here in the US and around the world, but we are all part of the problem until our economy is based on people making money by producing things and then purchasing goods with earned money instead of credit (primarily).

As for people without big financial stakes rooting for a company to fail, well its not surprising. We are in an economic system that serves personal gratification by purchasing goods made by cheap labor with credit. Everything is about self gratification. There are many people who want their favorite company (APPLE, MS, GOOGLE, PALM, etc.) to dominate so that their personal experience is safe. Why would someone wish facebook's demise for example? Most likely because they have a preferred way of social networking and if other people are using facebook then they have to change. If someone is using microsoft windows, they probably don't like apple because it makes life difficult for them to have a different system out there to deal with. Life is easier if everyone does things the same way and preferably THEIR way. It's a self centered economy and it breeds selfishness in our society.

In case someone wants to comment that one political party or another is to blame for our current economic system that promotes purchasing on credit, I will remind you that BOTH political parties see the solution as keeping credit available. The Bush administration pushed for Bank bailouts and the Obama administration continued this policy. The paradigm in this nation is that the money should flow from our credit accounts to the cheap labor making the products with a lot of it skimmed off the top for the major players. No one is suggesting that the system needs to be changed.
 
The patent portfolio.

Last time I checked Apple is suing HTC over essentially multitouch patents. Ever wonder why Palm wasn't sued over that?
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Because Apple doesn't feel threatened by palm. It seems like they are much more scared of HTC and Android than they were of palm because it wasn't cutting in to their iPhone sales. I'm not sure what the numbers are for HTCs phones. Are those sales comparable to the iPhone?
 
Maldini said:
If HTC buys Palm, they can counter sue Apple right?!
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If apple thought there is anything to fear from those patents they'd either preemptively sue palm to reduce palm's value to potential buyers (no one wants to buy a failed company that comes with a lawsuit) or outbid htc for palm's IP.
 
napabar said:
Agreed. This is why I think Apple should buy Palm. They have a portfolio of patents that would be useful. This, and this alone is the only reason for Apple to buy them.
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+1. It's sad to hear this about Palm. However, Apple should buy them and secure all patents and IP. One of the first things that should be implemented after their acquistion is retrofit iPhone OS 4.x push notifications with how notifications were done on WebOS. [Side thought] Didn't some Apple software engineers defect to Palm to help write/create WebOS anyway?
 
ten-oak-druid said:
While I share opinion that there is room for multiple companies to do well, I think it is a little naive to think the brand of capitalism we have in the US is all about solidarity and fair play. There are big time investors and people on the floor of the stock market buying stocks of one company, knowing another is failing and hoping they got it right as one companies failure helps the other.

On a more personal level, the average citizen is willing to live on an un-level playing field to their own benefit everyday. People say all sorts of things without really having thought about what they are saying. I hear all the time complaints about illegal aliens and foreign labor taking jobs away. Yet we live in a consumer economy. We don't produce anything in this nation really (except for weapons). How many people are willing to honestly say they are so concerned about their fellow citizens that they would prefer to pay higher prices for electronics and their newly constructed houses in order to employ skilled American labor? Not many sadly. Our consumer economy is all about finding sources of money for consumers to borrow and give it to underpaid labor abroad or here illegally. The inequality drives the economy with the profit going to a few at the top as the money changes hands. And the complaints are few because its been so long since most people here had manufacturing jobs to be concerned about. And most people would prefer to keep prices low on everything for cheap consumption than get a job in manufacturing instead of the service/consumer industry.

Our society is not truly capitalistic. It is a leverage of inequality about the globe creating cheap labor on one side and consumers on the other. The only problem is when the credit runs dry. Then the "fix" is to find new sources of credit. For those who are making money as CEO's and big time stock investors, it is in fact a sporting event and the stakes are high. While you and I may not intentionally desire the demise of a company for enormous profit, we are part of the economic system that drives the world. There are many who are ignorant of the problems the service/consumer driven economy of ours is causing here in the US and around the world, but we are all part of the problem until our economy is based on people making money by producing things and then purchasing goods with earned money instead of credit (primarily).
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Oh, I perfectly understand your point. My original point was that it never ceases to amaze me to see posts celebrating the demise of another company when there are families going to be put into a tight situation because of such a demise. It just seems rather immature.
 
rwilliams said:
I have never understood this attitude. Why do people root for companies to fail? What a negative time we live in.
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I clicked to read the comments fully expecting a "good riddance" comment within the first page. People don't seem to remember what the PDA world was like just 10 years ago. Remember Windows CE? Palm was the "Apple" of the PDA world back then, with their simple to use, elegant interface. And what a remarkable success they were, spawning a following of compatible devices from other companies, like the Handspring Visor, which was kind of like a cross between a Palm PDA and a Game Boy, and the Sony CLIE.

Yes, they seem to have dropped the ball (I agree with a comment above saying the Treo 650 was the last great Palm device -- it was certainly the last device *I* coveted), leaving room for Windows Mobile and RIM to clean up in the PDA/smartphone space, and now Apple, as a latecomer to the game, is taking over. But back in the day, we would all have been rooting for Palm.

I still have a Palm Tx somewhere (although, to be honest, I'm about to sell it).
 
not sure anyone would really care to buy Palm except for one thing, access to any patent they may be holding. there's no talent or innovation left there, but maybe another company could do something better with the R&D that palm has allowed to collect dust for so many years.
 
str1f3 said:
What is HTC exactly supposed to with Palm besides get their patents? I've never understood that. They're already making Android and Windows Phone Series Phone 7.

Is this for their own dedicated mobile OS?
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Here is a reason why I dont want Apple or RIM or Nokia to by Palm...

All of the companies I listed Make/Designs their own OS and their hardware..
Palm was one of these companies also... with palm gone I don want there to be LESS competition in that area... so If Palm got absorb by one of the above 3 it would be no good for us folks.

Now HTC only designs hardware, gorgeous hardware at that, it would be in their best interest to join the OS field and marry it with their hardware and offer a 3 OS platform with 2(android,WM7) with one inhouse OS...
 
nastebu said:
Why on earth for? The only value Palm has is in WebOS, and Google already has an operating system.

For that matter, why would anyone buy Palm when there's a free-to-use and very well supported operating system in Android?
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Palm's patents are quite valuable...
 
ten-oak-druid said:
While I share opinion that there is room for multiple companies to do well, I think it is a little naive to think the brand of capitalism we have in the US is all about solidarity and fair play. There are big time investors and people on the floor of the stock market buying stocks of one company, knowing another is failing and hoping they got it right as one companies failure helps the other.

On a more personal level, the average citizen is willing to live on an un-level playing field to their own benefit everyday. People say all sorts of things without really having thought about what they are saying. I hear all the time complaints about illegal aliens and foreign labor taking jobs away. Yet we live in a consumer economy. We don't produce anything in this nation really (except for weapons). How many people are willing to honestly say they are so concerned about their fellow citizens that they would prefer to pay higher prices for electronics and their newly constructed houses in order to employ skilled American labor? Not many sadly. Our consumer economy is all about finding sources of money for consumers to borrow and give it to underpaid labor abroad or here illegally. The inequality drives the economy with the profit going to a few at the top as the money changes hands. And the complaints are few because its been so long since most people here had manufacturing jobs to be concerned about. And most people would prefer to keep prices low on everything for cheap consumption than get a job in manufacturing instead of the service/consumer industry.

Our society is not truly capitalistic. It is a leverage of inequality about the globe creating cheap labor on one side and consumers on the other. The only problem is when the credit runs dry. Then the "fix" is to find new sources of credit. For those who are making money as CEO's and big time stock investors, it is in fact a sporting event and the stakes are high. While you and I may not intentionally desire the demise of a company for enormous profit, we are part of the economic system that drives the world. There are many who are ignorant of the problems the service/consumer driven economy of ours is causing here in the US and around the world, but we are all part of the problem until our economy is based on people making money by producing things and then purchasing goods with earned money instead of credit (primarily).
Click to expand...


+1. That's definitely something to think about. Good point.
 
str1f3 said:
Can't say to the reason why Apple never sued. It could be that they never viewed them as a threat. Who knows.

Of course it seems logical that any company would want their patents but there have been articles saying HTC may want WebOS as well. I'm just wondering why since HTC already has their Sense UI.
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Sense UI is not a standalone OS. hTC is doing great with Android and WM, but both OS are not owned by hTC. By acquiring Palm and WebOS, hTC will have an OS to call its own. Palm WebOS is an advanced platform and hTC makes excellent hardware (this year alone hTC release Desire, Legend, N1, Incredible and EVO). Their lineup is very impressive, and of course Apple view them as a direct threat.

Hopefully hTC end up buying Palm, WebOS and its vast patent profolio. Then we can only hope either Apple withdraws the lawsuit or hTC countersues.
 
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