A couple of years ago I sadly predicted Palm was not long for the cell phone world. I take no pride however in news that reports it continues to slide:


http://money.cnn.com/2010/03/19/tech...dex.htm?hpt=T2

I expect them to eventually be bought for certain IP, but it will be very, very cheaply. Although potential suitors may wait, hoping a bankruptcy occurs.

Palm has been a purchase waiting for a buyer for a long time. Marketcap allready below 1 billion (US). Might be worthwhile investment for HTC and/or Google. Both need some oldskool mobile IP, quickly.

An epic "what could have been": Palm came out with the Folio right around the time the world was waking up to the fact that there was such a thing as a netbook & they wanted it. Unfortunately, Folio was not that netbook -- it had to be tethered to a Palm smartphone to do anything interesting. So close and yet so far.

Certainly it's been apparent for several years that Palm has been struggling with direction. They were leading the pack & then they fell behind when the world transitioned from PDAs to smartphones.

It's not obvious to me why Palm would be acquired. Market share? The Web OS platform?

Not acquired in toto probably, but in pieces-- mainly oriented around technical IP.

I can see a bankruptcy auction... Google and HTC salivating like buzzards over the guts...

The writing was on the wall.
1) Palm failed to integrate expandable memory (no Micro SD)
2) Palm failed to create a GSM device in a timely manner

failing to create a product with the above features. pushed consumers like me to either but an n900 or an Iphone 3Gs.

palm have to earn some street cred. I belie if they hang in there, solve problems 1 and 2 they can earn there way back.

don't be surprised if you hear of Intel being interested,
the rumour of Nokia or Google buying them is a little old now if they really wanted Palm they would already have them, unless they are waiting for them to near enough go bust so the offers they make can't be refused.

I think Palm is over the breaking point.

Maybe this would be a good joint investment for nokia intel partnership to make it much more than software and go the full bang of joint hardware venture.

The company lost its way many years ago after constantly changing its structure and burning through investors money.

The board of directors and senior managers have a lot to answer for.

I hate to see this but the web phone they produced was too little too late.

Palm were the innovators of PDA devices and smartphones. The people runnimg the company years ago just took the money and run.

Very sad.

There is only one simple explanation for this, the Palm pre looks rubbish and the screen is too small!

Otherwise I may have bought it instead of just ignoring it.