Is Palm up for sale?

David Heath
Tuesday, 13 April 2010 13:23

IT Industry - Listed Tech

The writing has been on the wall for some time now.  Finally, rumours abound that Palm has put up the for-sale signs.

It was only 18 months ago that Palm's share price hit the giddy heights of around $17.50.

After closing a day ago at $5.16, news of a possible buy-out lifted the price to $6.04.

Bloomberg is reporting that Goldman Sachs has been appointed to manage the sale; the report also notes that interest has already been shown by HTC and Lenovo.

Founded in 1992, Palm has always had a very chequered career alternating between financial darling and pariah in quick succession.  For instance, in late 2008, the share price was as low as $2, yet less than a year later it was at the peaks mentioned earlier.

Palm has been caught out by the strong popularity of two new platforms - Android and iPhone and neither is going away any time soon.  Popularity for apps clearly demonstrates that Palm has a huge uphill battle ahead, no matter who buys them.

Aside from HTC and Lenovo, industry commentators are also pointing at RIM (who really need a proper OS for their Blackberry phones), Dell (who would clearly love to get into this market) or even Huawei or ZTC (who would find this a quick way to get a new handset for Chinese consumption).

Right now (in the US), potential owners can get a Palm Pre very cheaply as Verizon Wireless is attempting to offload inventory as fast as possible.

That probably isn't a good sign!