Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
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?

Maybe Oracle will buy them.

It doesn't look like they want to get into the mobile phone business, but if they decided to do so, Palm would be the ideal buy.

Oracle probably wouldn't want to use Android, because it uses what Oracle would consider fake Java. And I am sure Oracle would find some value in the patents.

A mobile phone running the best version of mobile Java controlled by the maker of Java would probably find a place in the market. And Sun wanted to port Java to the iPhone, so there is some interest there in smartphones.
 
So it wasnt just me that thought she looked odd :D I couldnt put my finger on it but she made me feel uneasy. :confused:

Gizmodo referred to her as "The creepy Palm Pre chick". Actually the actress is quite pretty but the way they filmed her made her downright disturbing to look at.
 
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.

So is HTC supposed to make their own OS while still making hardware for competing OSs like Android and WM? That doesn't sound like a very sound move.

If HTC were doing this to solely make their own product I could understand it. It would leave both Android and WM without their largest hardware maker whic h would be interesting.
 
webOS is a fantastic platform. Horrific advertising and shoddy hardware nullified the OS. Palm killed themselves.

You forgot to mention this ridiculous soap with iTunes synchronization. I still cringe at the fact that they sold iTunes synching as a feature, knowing that they would get in trouble with it. How can you do that to your customers?
 
i personally thought the palm pre was a great device, i loved the OS and everything really just felt natural, it currently is my favorite multitasking system, i just felt that it was well done, i dont know what apple would do with palm though... they already have their OS and i don't ever see them making an ipalm or something like that, with another OS, maybe HTC or Samsung should bite,they both have really nice phone designs and could really use the OS that palm created to add to their selection, but since androids release i dont know how many people would get it :/
 
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?
Seems like getting a hold of Palm's patents is reason enough. Only reason Apple is suing HTC right now (instead of Google, since Android is their true target) is because HTC's patent portfolio isn't that big. If they had a bigger portfolio, they could better fight back against patent disputes (or stop patent disputes before they even start).
 
Latecomer. I had the original Palm Pilot, almost the week it came out.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

Me too. I think in part the original Pilot was inspired by the Newton, but got Handwriting recognition right and was a lot simpler. But Palm failed when they never got past OS5 for ever and never truly innovated their core system eventually having to go over to Windows Mobile. Hawkins was great at coming up with the first device and Palm OS, but others truly evolved integrating the phone with the device.

WebOS was obviously much too late.
 
Seems like getting a hold of Palm's patents is reason enough.

Patents, patents, patents... This would only be interesting if Palm would have patents that were of any significance to Apple. Does anyone here know what patents Palm would have that would be interesting? I assume it couldn't be that many, since Palm was late to the party after having been dormant innovation-wise for x years..

Other than maybe patents (which I'm not even sure of) I don't see anything that Palm has that Apple could benefit from. Maybe some talented developers, but that would be about it. Rubinstein has burned too many bridges to come back.. Maybe he can go "rescue" nokia's smartphone business now.
 
Consolidation is inevitable. The market will center around iPhones, Android and RIM, with secondary market share for the new Win 7 phones from Microsoft. There just isn't room for Palm, let alone Symbian and others to take a huge chunk of market share.

RIM will fade slowly until it becomes enterprise only. Win 7 will never amount to much just as the Zune never did. Eventually the big pieces of the pie will be owned by Apple and Google.

The only reason to buy Palm is to get their patents.

haha! When I first looked at this post, I read "The only reason to buy Palm is to get into their pants" !

Seriously though, Microsoft will need to pay close attention to Palm's fate if they want to avoid the same with Windows Mobile 7.
 
Are we that surprised

While I hate to see Palm go, is this any reason shock? They nevered bothered to update their interface, until what two years ago? Sure they had a great idea within the past year or two with thre pre, but alas too little far too late.
 
So is HTC supposed to make their own OS while still making hardware for competing OSs like Android and WM? That doesn't sound like a very sound move.

The same thing was said when HTC started making their own branded phones, after being the manufacturer for other companies for years. Didn't stop others from still using them. It actually helped their design reputation hugely.

Then there were worries about HTC making Android phones while still making WinMo phones. Again, no problem.

The fact is, there is no one mobile OS that fits all needs. HTC does not need to limit itself to only WM or WP7 or Android phones. Being the supplier of all those plus WebOS could only be good for them. Not to mention getting Palm's patents.
 
Patents, patents, patents... This would only be interesting if Palm would have patents that were of any significance to Apple. Does anyone here know what patents Palm would have that would be interesting? I assume it couldn't be that many, since Palm was late to the party after having been dormant innovation-wise for x years..

Other than maybe patents (which I'm not even sure of) I don't see anything that Palm has that Apple could benefit from. Maybe some talented developers, but that would be about it. Rubinstein has burned too many bridges to come back.. Maybe he can go "rescue" nokia's smartphone business now.

Although it would be interesting to see how many patents actually rest with palm and not their parent company 3Com

This article suggests that palm could have a large number of patents
http://investor.palm.com/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=339188

Hotsync for one.
 
Gizmodo referred to her as "The creepy Palm Pre chick". Actually the actress is quite pretty but the way they filmed her made her downright disturbing to look at.

I think they were going for a modern Mona Lisa thing. You know Mona Lisa's smile. i.e. there's something not quite right about it.
 
HTC + WebOS = Nice!

I think an HTC buyout of Palm would be best for consumers. HTC makes hardware comparable to Apple, and WebOS on the right hardware will give iPhone OS 4 a run for it's money. I'd go buy an HTC WebOS phone today if they offered one.
 
Hotsync for one.

I'm not an expert on patents (cmaier, where are you when we need you :D ), but Hotsync is a technology dating at least ten years back, and I'm not sure whether that is still a very significant patent, as most if not all smartphones sync data with home computers nowadays.

Palm hasn't shown much innovative activity since the introduction of the Palm V up to the introduction of the Palm Pre. The design of the devices was basically updated with few if any updates to the OS and at some point the inclusion of a cellphone function.. It really was not much more than that. If they didn't evolve their product that much, than I guess there wasn't much R&D and patenting going on behind the scenes.
 
So is HTC supposed to make their own OS while still making hardware for competing OSs like Android and WM? That doesn't sound like a very sound move.

If HTC were doing this to solely make their own product I could understand it. It would leave both Android and WM without their largest hardware maker whic h would be interesting.

they already have SenseUI, which a lot of people like. having their own OS would give them more control and not be dependent on MS or Google
 
Yeah, I see your point. It's just kinda sad and nothing to celebrate, in my opinion. A once great company is dead and a lot of good people are going to be out of work. I still can't think of who would want WebOS at this point though. iPhone OS, Android, and Blackberry OS are the only ones who will be left standing. I even think that Microsoft is too far behind at this point to make any kind of dent.

This has nothing to do with the families of Palm for me. That's capitalism so it happens. What's disturbing is the downfall of another competitor of Apple. Unless RIM changes its model, they will be next (3-5 years from now).

Celebrating the downfall of companies is in bad taste. Competition is good. It drives innovation on all sides.

The sports analogy is a good one. I cheer for my team to beat the other team, not for all the other teams to be sold and dismantled. That would just cause the demise of the entire sport.
 
I remember commercials for the Palm Pre that were shown again and again during the remake of The Prisoner a little while ago. They featured a very strange looking actress and were downright disturbing to watch :eek:. Just awful marketing. Those commercials probably reduced demand for the Pre.

Ha ha! I was thinking the same thing. Every time one of those commercials came on, all I could think of was "WTF?!" Who came up with this crap? Some robotic/futuristic woman spouting things like "I saw this juggler the other in the park . . ." or "You ever had one of those days?" or "My phone can read my mind. At first, it freaked me out . . " Seriously . . . WTF?

These commercials were so bad that it spawned hundreds and hundreds of spoofs on YouTube.

I was seriously wanting the Pre to do well, but after seeing these ads, I had a strong feeling it was doomed, at least marketing-wise.
 
Patents, patents, patents... This would only be interesting if Palm would have patents that were of any significance to Apple. Does anyone here know what patents Palm would have that would be interesting? I assume it couldn't be that many, since Palm was late to the party after having been dormant innovation-wise for x years..
Some of the stuff Apple is accusing HTC of allegedly infringing upon are stuff that were patented back in the 90s. You don't need to have "innovation" within the last few years to have a portfolio of patents that other companies might have infringed upon. Plam was the market leader in touch screen PDAs for much of the 90s. They probably have something in their portfolio that Apple is allegedly infringing on (because every company allegedly infringes on patents; but when both companies have a big portfolio, they end up just settling out of court and working out deals for using each other's patents).
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.