When it comes to a war, there’s always a winner and a loser. In the smartphone war, the big loser might end up being the company that first put portable computing and the idea of a smartphone in consumer skulls. That would be Palm, whose revolutionary PDA, the PalmPilot, was probably the first PDA I remember ever seeing in person. Unfortunately for Palm, those days are long behind them, and the company hasn’t turned in a profitable fiscal year since May 2007. Let the bidding frenzy begin!
When you look at these sorts of mergers and acquisitions, it’s always fun to see who wants the company and for what product. Everyone seems to want Palm’s WebOS operating system. Lenovo wants them to add to their cell phone product line. Fellow smartphone manufacturer HTC is also interested. Nokia and Motorola want to keep the brand’s products in their own offered product lines. Of course, there are also perennial buyers like Dell and Microsoft also poking their noses around, looking for a bargain.
It’s kind of funny. Palm started the hand-held organizer/computer business, then failed to make the jump over to smart phones in time to catch that wave. Now, thanks to the iPad, it looks like the Palm-type device is coming back. Just not in time to save the company’s independent bacon.
Tags: Palm, Palm for sale, smartphones, cell phones, smartphone maker for sale, WebOS, smartphone maker going bankrupt