Apple Tried to Buy Palm?

According to the Business Insider, Apple was one of the companies looking to purchase Palm. Other companies that were interested were Google and RIM. A source familiar with the negotiations claims Apple was interested in Palm for their huge library of intellectual property. Surprisingly, Apple was supposedly ok with funding Palm’s operations. The source also said RIM had the deal “in its hands” and worked hard to blow it”. Google wanted Palm since they though Apple might want it.

Sounds to us like the best deal for Palm and it’s users was the deal with HP.

comScore reports: Palm losing ground, but don’t panic

comScore yesterday released their quarterly score (Feb-May 2010) for the US mobile subscriber marketshare, which shows that Palm have lost a small percentage of smartphone subscribers. However, the percentage decrease is nothing to be too alarmed or indeed shocked about; there was a 0.6% decline from February’s figure of 5.4%, to May’s figure of 4.8%.

The report does however state that most smartphone platforms are still continuing to gain subscribers, although just losing market share to Google’s Android platform – which is the only one to have increased market share percentage this quarter. Which, lets be honest, is pretty understandable considering the sheer amount of handsets manufacturers are putting out there for the platform.

Here is the table which shows the results, and a link to comScore’s Press Release

Top Smartphone Platforms
3 Month Avg. Ending May 2010 vs. 3 Month Avg. Ending Feb. 2010
Total U.S. Age 13+
Source: comScore MobiLens
Share (%) of Smartphone Subscribers
Feb-10 May-10 Point Change
Total Smartphone Subscribers 100.0% 100.0% N/A
RIM 42.1% 41.7% -0.4
Apple* 25.4% 24.4% -1.0
Microsoft 15.1% 13.2% -1.9
Google 9.0% 13.0% 4.0
Palm 5.4% 4.8% -0.6

Morgan Stanley suggests Motorola, Nokia would benefit most from Palm acquisition

Today’s wheel of Palm lands on Nokia and Motorola. Morgan Stanley has weighed in saying that Nokia and Motorola would derive the most strategic benefit from acquiring Palm. Motorola’s CEO Sanjay Jha has hinted in the past that the company would like it’s own OS. Like HTC, Motorola manufactures phones that are dependent upon Google’s Android OS. Motorola has yet to announce any Windows 7 Phones, but they are expected to join HTC in manufacturing phones running Microsoft’s new OS.

wheel-palm-2

We believe the potential ownership of WebOS would create a more defendable and viable long-term mobile devices business” for Motorola, the Morgan Stanley report said.

The analysts also suggested HTC and RIM may also be a “strategic fit”. DELL, Microsoft, Samsung, Lenovo and LG are “possible but likely less interested”.

As with all of these reports, there is no hard evidence regarding any of it. Palm hasn’t commented and the companies listed above have all issued a no comment.

Editor’s note: Both HTC and Motorola are the most interesting companies, since their current strategy involves manufacturing Android and Windows Phone devices. If they were to purchase Palm, it would likely be for webOS, although one could surmise that HTC could do it strictly for the patent portfolio. This would likely result in a major shift in their strategy. Would they continue to develop phones for Android and Windows? How would the acquisition affect their current relationships with Google and Microsoft? Would they make a bold move and go all in with webOS? These are likely just a few of the questions being bandied if the rumors regarding their interest in Palm is to be believed.

via Business Week

New Palm Ad Focuses On BlackBerry Woes

Palm is looking to capitalize on RIM’s recent outages with a new online promotion on their site. The ad proudly proclaims, "Palm smartphones include voice, e-mail, text, Web, calendar, and contacts. And most importantly, uptime. Connect to your Microsoft Exchange Server. No third-party servers and no nationwide blackouts."

New Palm ad
Palm ad references BlackBerry outages

Click to enlarge.

RIM has seen critical success with their BlackBerry Curve and BlackBerry 8800 devices, forcing Palm to play catch-up. This may very well change when Palm releases the much anticipated Treo 800w, rumored to introduce a much needed new form factor. No official word yet from Palm on the Treo 800w, though many expect an April timeframe for the release.

Source: PDABlast