Submitted by Despite a relatively solid product, it seems like Palm’s last ditch effort to turn the company around have failed. Bloomberg is reporting that the Sunnyvale company has put itself up for sale, and is currently working with Goldman Sachs and Qatalyst Partners to find a buyer. They claim both HTC as well as Lenovo are interested in buying Palm.
There’s no confirmation yet, but it wouldn’t be too surprising if this story turns out to be 100% accurate. In something that is relatively rare in this industry, Palm’s okay on the software side, but not on the hardware side (it’s usually vice versa). The hardware simply isn’t able to compete with the iPhone and high-end Android phones, and on top of that, marketing has been disastrous. To make matters worse, Palm chose the wrong launch partner (Sprint) and was unable to deliver their products worldwide.
Both HTC and Lenovo are said to be interested, as was Dell but they have decided to back out. If it were up to me, I’d definitely prefer HTC – any company that manages to make Windows Mobile phones desirable is a company that can turn Palm around and/or do something useful with the webOS. Can you imagine the HD2 with webOS? +12 awesomeness.
“Palm still has quite a good brand in the US market, and some strong technology, so you can do something with it,†Frank He, a technology analyst at BOC International Holdings Ltd, told Bloomberg, “The shares have gone down a lot and the company may become attractive to anyone looking for a turnaround play.”
And just like with Research In Motion’s acquisition of QNX Software Systems, there’s an intellectual property aspect to all this. Palm has a very long history in the mobile world, and has played a vital role in the early days of the smartphone (and, of course, the PDA), meaning they have a substantial patent portfolio that might come in handy for HTC in its legal battle with Apple.
HTC or no, all this does mean we’ll see the end of Palm as an independent company. As a fan of their PDAs, this makes me quite sad indeed, but so is the nature of business. At least Palm is trying to get itself bought instead of just dying in blaze of glory.
I agree that the patent portfolilo of Palm would completely change the game in the lawsuit with apple. If that happens, I can only expect a cross licensing plan as the worst case scenario. That would still suck to some degree, because it puts a cloud of uncertainty around android. I’d hate for it to be only distributable by large companies with significant defensive patent portfolios.
Apple could be interested in buying Palm too.
(Oops made a comment about Be, Inc./BeOS, but indeed it’s owned by Access (PalmSource) and not Palm itself. Please ignore.)
Edited 2010-04-13 08:29 UTC
..please God, let webOS survive. I have pretty much resigned myself to going Android next year, have written articles about it, talked about it on Facebook. I played around with Android again for an hour this morning after not looking at it since I bought a Pre, and it pretty much sucks compared to webOS. I would be hard pressed to decide between an iPhone and some Android device, and frankly, the user experience of either will leave me unhappy after becoming accustomed to webOS.
*fingers crossed for webOS to survive all this*
i just got rid of my droid to get a palm pre. i honestly had no idea how cool webos was when i bought my droid. and once i saw a few videos online and played with it in the store. i wanted it. things i have noticed after having both.
the apps for palm pre are of much higher quality, even though there are less apps. most of the android apps are of poor quality. especially the games.
then i had bugs with the droid. every once in a while the alarm would fail to ring. and no i was not using task killer. it would just fail. the alarm would go off and then not make any noise. and it would cancel the alarm after 10 minutes. this is just completely unacceptable to me. i must be on time for work..
the other bug with either android or my droid handset is that after its been on for a day or two, the gps stops working and will say finding gps. then you got to shut it completely off, and then back on for it to start working again.
also the droid is hard to multitask with the browser. you have to click a button, pick new tab, it’s just a poor design. the pre allows you to open multiple apps easily. you just open multiple web browsers and flick between them. it’s so much better.
the music app for the droid is lame. the pre pulled up images and has gestures for changing songs and stuff.
in my experience the webos is like the android os. but better.
when you plug it into your computer it acts just like how the android acts. you get a folder view, you can put your music folder in, name it whatever you want and it will still find the music. it picks up your contacts just like the android phone did. syncs them from facebook even.
Funny you should mention that… I have two coworkers with Palm Pres and both of them were late for work a couple weeks ago because an update from Palm killed the alarm clocks on both of their phones.
Yeah, I like how the Pre handles multiple apps. That and the way you delete emails (by just flicking them off the screen) are the only two things I really liked about webos.
it cannot be bought by Google and get some contract with HTC for patents ?
If bought, what about the old code of BeOS purchased by Palm ?
Palm is not the owner of BeOS. Access is.
Edited 2010-04-12 15:12 UTC
It’s just old. Haiku is more advanced now and it’s code is supporting newer hardware.
True but if the code were opened up it would no doubt be enlightening… also BeOS had optimised codecs those might still be of use.
optimized codecs for what? 320×240?
The only optimized codecs in there were Indeo, which is just about useless nowadays. Besides which the source for those wouldn’t be openable anyways since those codecs belong to Intel.
Palm Source owned the rights to BeOS. Palm Source already got bought a LONG time ago by ACCESS. Palm Inc is the hardware business only – which licensed PalmOS initially, the Windows Mobile, and created “WebOS” to fill the gap left by lack of PalmOS updates and general suckiture of Win Mob.
If you want the code opened up, go talk to ACCESS.
I wonder how much RIM looked into purchase of palm ? Or the price tag of QNX compared with Palm at this time?
My personal preference for a buyer would be Google. They could get the patents and add the devs into the Android fold, hopefully bringing a little UI polish with them.
Next on my list would be RIM. RIM is firmly entrenched in business and have a solid hardware quality reputation (two areas where Palm doesn’t appear to be doing well), but seem to be struggling in attracting non-business consumers. WebOS has the necessary features and “bling” to attract non-business consumers. Palm could be relaunched as a business capable phone (once RIM services are ported) that also meets users’ high-end smartphone needs.
The HTC buy doesn’t make much sense beyond gaining a bunch of defensive patents against Apple (which could be enough reason on its own). HTC seems to be doing pretty well as a hardware provider for Android and Windows Mobile. Both platforms seem poised for significant growth, so I wonder if HTC would want to jeopardize this with pushing their own OS.
Lenovo doesn’t seem like a good fit either. Their strengths are in hardware, not software. I haven’t seen many HW companies make this transition successfully, so I am skeptical. This also applies to Dell, HP, ASUS, and Motorola. Yes, I know Motorola has made some statements about wanting their own OS, but I haven’t seen any good software from them in the last 15 years.
WebOS was not a fully thought out project to replace PalmOS. Just now, the IPhones and Androids of the world are catching up to features I had been used to on the Palm Treos. A year ago, I replaced my aging Treo 650 with a Treo 755p from an online auction site due to the fact that PalmOS just worked and had I gone to WebOS for glitz, I would have been missing out on at least a simple thing like an ssh client to access other systems (pssh).
I never cared or wanted to access the palm via ssh, and there should have been emulation close to native for the thousands of old but working PalmOS apps.
If my 755p dies soon, I’ll probably go auction hunting for the same model again, or trying out android which seems to have an ok ssh client and good exchange sync.
Yeah, Android and iPhoneOS have both had (multiple) ssh clients for a while now.
pssh is terrible compared to even PocketPuTTY on WinMo, let alone ConnectBot on Android (which is really, really good.)
And, there are ways to get an ssh client on WebOS, although IIRC it involves installing a terminal client, and then using the command-line OpenSSH client (hey, it is Linux, after all.)
Most of the text I’ve read say the same things about WebOS ssh client. I can’t find any definitive answer on how putting a terminal on the device changes the UI, how good it is and handling curses is a must. It comes down to terminal emulation really, where pssh has xterm, vt100, vt220, xterm- color and surprisingly a “putty” terminal emulator. Why can’t there be a simple app that sits among the other webOS apps?
For those reasons, I’d look to Android as my next choice which has a mature client and while I agree that PocketPutty is great; but WinMo=no.
Myself, I’ll use Windows Mobile over Palm OS any day. WinMo may be slow, it may be unstable, but at least it has a decent web browser (Blazer sucks, and Opera Mini is incredibly unstable on Palm OS) and it can multitask.
Suck it.
I cheer at the death of Palm.
It’s a fitting demise given their incompetence in steering the platform’s direction and inability to get a modern OS in a proper time-frame…
Eight Years Too Late.
Good riddance to the jerks that buried BeOS.
P.S. I’d expect Nokia or HTC will try to pick them up. For the patents. Certainly not for the management.
Edited 2010-04-12 18:27 UTC
RIM: most of their business comes from secure email service, which does not fit with webos. and they just bough QNX.
HTC: it would def help their lawsuit with apple. but it would have to promote yet another platform, a failed one nonetheless. not sure HTC’s pockets are deep enough.
Nokia: They need it, but they are invested in Symbian and Maemo. it takes a big man to admit his mistakes. Can the nokia CEO do that?
Motorola: their fortunes aren’t much better than Palm, dont have the deep pockets to promote a separate platform.
I really hope palm can survive. but i just dont see it. webos needs a large corporation to succeed, but nokia/samsung/RIM all made their bets already. maybe sony or LG will give it a shot.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: calling webOS a “failed platform” is premature. Palm as a company failed; it’s not the same thing.
Also, there’s no rule dictating HTC “would have to promote yet another platform”–indeed, the only sensible move IMHO would be to make webOS “the one” for all future HTC phones. Otherwise what’s the point?
You’re right that HTC’s pockets aren’t nearly as deep as its competitors’, but then again, what it spends on Palm it may make up in saved legal fees.
Please god no! Sony really would be likely to add webOS to their long list of platforms instead of implementing it across the board–and it would end up with a similar fate to UIQ, unloved and abandoned. As for LG, well, I don’t really know… their phones somehow seem to lack a distinctive personality, and their platform strategy (or lack thereof) seems to be almost as bad as Sony’s….
Edited 2010-04-12 21:16 UTC
JLG should buy the IP and bury the sourcecode!! RETRIBUTION!!! Hahaha 😛
God how I’d love to mod parent up — but I’ve already commented. *sigh*
“Nokia: They need it, but they are invested in Symbian and Maemo. it takes a big man to admit his mistakes. Can the nokia CEO do that?”
Nokia is now partnered with Intel to develop Meego (http://meego.com), based on the highly regarded QT framework. Meego is highly scalable, targeting smartphones, mediaphones, tablets / netbooks, in-vehicle entertainment, and smart TVs. They have a long list of major corporations in all of those arenas supporting them. They also have a rather compelling transition story from Intel’s Moblin, Nokia’s Maemo, and even the current market-leader Symbian.
While the webOS user interface paradigms are compelling, they would have to re-implement them from scratch in QT. And since Meego base is already available on gitorious, it’s getting late for a major change. I just don’t think Nokia would be a good fit for Palm.
HTC makes the most sense, but only for the patents. I can’t see a likely scenario in which webOS prospers as an independent OS. And I’m sad, because I was a long-time Palm fan until I bought my N900.
They had a great initial showing. Out of nowhere, they managed to produce a beautiful and functional OS capable of going toe to toe with iPhoneOS. Everyone wrote them off until they saw what WebOS was.
Initially, they were the only other smartphone OS to really challenge Apple on the user experience front. iPhone was a game changer (like them or not), and Palm was the first to up its game. RIM was stodgy (but well-liked among the business-set), Microsoft was stuck in 2001, and Android still being worked on.
Then, nothing. Plenty of potential blame. The partnership with sinking Sprint, lackluster and bizarre advertising, Verizon not really behind the Verizon launch.
Now, we’ve got Windows Mobile 7 looking (pains me to say it) amazing, Android firing on all cylinders, iPhone loved by its users and loathed by people who would never use it, so Palm isn’t so special anymore.
If there’s one thing to say about HTC, it’s that they know how to make a well-crafted, refined piece of hardware. And as it happens, that is the one area where Palm was really lacking. So the combination of the two does indeed seem like a match made in heaven.
Google or RIM as buyers makes much less sense IMHO since they both already have their own OSes with completely different technologies underlying them–so for the most part it would be a waste of perfectly good Palm technology, with very little synergy able to be gained. HTC on the other hand probably wouldn’t mind having a new platform all its own–especially when you consider how much attention to detail they always tend to put into their hardware and their custom Android and WinMob UIs. On top of that they seem to have more extensive carrier agreements than Palm, so maybe webOS devices would finally be available everywhere in the world.
I would definitely drool a lake the second an HTC/webOS device hit the market….
Another thing I just realized that I should have pointed out in my last post is that HTC is one of the few companies that really seems to share Palm’s DNA–that is, they really care only about smartphones, and nothing else. They don’t make computers, they don’t make feature phones, they don’t care about getting revenues from search or services or ads or multimedia stores or other kinds of tie-ins, they aren’t just the token phone branch of a consumer electronics giant.
No. They are small and focussed on one thing: making very useful, usable, drool-worthy, do-everything, touch-screen devices. Just like Palm.
(well, at least there was a time when PalmOS devices were drool-worthy. 😉 )
Edited 2010-04-12 21:35 UTC
The problem was they tried to make an iPhone killer… They put the resources to make an iPhone killer. Hired Apple Employees, Hacked Apples iTunes… But all it really ended up with was pissing off Apple more then competing against it. Want to compete against Apple fine but do it smart. Make a touch screen phone but use other sources for music, hire other skilled employees.
I have no idea why Google wouldn’t snatch this up in a digital heart beat. Google obviously has the dollars to easily absorb Palam, and they would get a near-invaluable set of mobile patents in return. Plus they’d get the kickass webOS, which they can easily incorporate into Android (both are Linux based). The webOS rocks and as a developer, I can tell you it’s the shiznitz on this front too. Where the heck is the downside here? It will be high-noon with Apple soon, Google, and this could be your B.F.G. Pull the trigger!