Palm May Be Bought by HTC or Lenovo Discussion

[Ed Hardy]

With lackluster sales of its latest smartphones, Palm, Inc. is supposedly looking to be acquired by a larger company. Palm has been independent for many years, but is reportedly looking for a partner.

Read the full content of this Article: Palm May Be Bought by HTC or Lenovo

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[Hook]

I'm about as good at business analysis as I am at changing digitizers , so I would be happy for others' input here.

I get what's in it for HTC, but what would Lenovo be looking for? I can't see them jumping into the smarphone market. Could they be looking at the possibility of a webOS tablet?

If HTC gets Palm, I can't see them trying to go up against Android for which they must already have a good relationship with Google.

I suspect WebOS may be dead or will simply become the new SenseUI if HTC gets it.

[Toe]

I get what's in it for HTC, but what would Lenovo be looking for? I can't see them jumping into the smarphone market.

Actually, they already have.

http://www.lenovomobile.com/en/
http://www.lenovo.com/news/us/en/200...e-handset.html

[Hook]

Actually, they already have.

http://www.lenovomobile.com/en/
http://www.lenovo.com/news/us/en/200...e-handset.html

Ah, thanks. I could only get the second link to come up at work, but that makes some sense. Shows what I know. See first sentence in my original post.

[Ed Hardy]

The $100 million question is whether any company buying Palm is interested in the webOS or in a pool of developers who are experts in creating very usable user interfaces for smartphones.

If it's the former, then a company with deeper pockets might be able to put out the kind of advertising campaign that would spur sales of Palm's current models. They would also be able to increase Palm's R&D budget to make better future smartphones.

On the other hand, if what this company wants is Palm's expertise, then the webOS is almost certainly headed for the scrap heap, and instead we'll see some improvements in the user interface on future HTC or Nokia models.

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[rdevet]

I have a feeling HTC mainly wants the patent portfolio to better fend off Apple.

[RickAgresta]

interesting article, here, too:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2362508,00.asp

[rhauer]

Will this announcement discourage program developers from writing apps for WebOs. I'm ditching my BB, was heading to Android and discovered that I really like the multitasking nature of WebOS. I just don't want to buy a dead platform.

[Hook]

Android Multi-tasks quite as well as WebOS. What particular aspect of WebOS are you referring to?

This news will probably not discourage current development, but people who were planning to develop will likely wait and see what happens. If you want to be sure you don't invest in a dead platform, you should probably hold off as long as you can. On the other hand, if a WebOS phone is a good match for you, get it and you'll have a good couple of years with it an can see what is happening then. The question is really, does the platform have what you want right now.

[Timothy Rapson]

Palm has been headed steadily downhill for a long time. Every time they get in financial trouble they issue more and more stock. They give stock to new folks like their current 30% backers mentioned here. They have a market capitalization of some $870 million by recent reports, but that makes their profit to earnings ratio terrible. They are practically a junk bond stock right now if you look at the basics.
How did this happen? Well, they haven't released good products. They could have had an iPhone out three years ago instead of Apple. They could have sold a PDA that matched the features of Sony's Clie TH55 and sold millions of them.
But, I can't help but wonder if Palm doesn't have one more life left.