“Speculation that Apple plans to buy handheld maker Palm has been revived by a call from two leading Palm investors for the company to be put up for sale, according to the local paper of both companies,” Clive Akass reports for Personal Computer World. “The fact that Apple has been named as a possible buyer may seem strange to those who recall that one of the most controversial acts of CEO Steve Jobs was to kill off the pen-driven Apple Newton, a pre-cursor of the Palm Pilot, when he returned to the company after a 10-year absence in 1996. Yet the two companies are closely linked. They are near neighbours and several early Palm employees, including co-founder and former company president Donna Dubinsky, previously worked with Apple.”
“Jobs tried to buy the company in the late nineties, according to the Mercury. Neither Apple nor Palm has given any sign that there is any basis for the renewed speculation but there are obvious fits between the two companies,” Akass writes. “Apple’s Ipod [sic] boom can hardly be sustained unless it can head off competition from PDAs and smartphones that can pack music players along with a host a other functions. Palm itself was slow off the mark in adding tricky telephony technology to its products and Apple would have a hard time starting from scratch in the market. Also, for all their vaunted style, the latest Apple notebooks look like antiques beside the latest pen-driven Tablet PCs. The company will have sooner or later be forced to offer a pen interface, and could benefit from Palm expertise in the area – especially as tablets are getting smaller, and may eventually supersede the PDA.”
Full article here.
Mr. Akass, meet Inkwell. To write that Apple’s portables look like antiques compared to Tablet PCs is ridiculous. Apple’s laptops should be compared to other laptops (most of which look like a bathroom scale when close, BTW), not to tablets. Apple’s portables are sleek, modern designs. Stop reading and recycling The Boston Herald’s Brett Arends’ scribblings, Mr. Akass. Apple doesn’t need Palm – Newton’s handwriting recognition is still better than the technology that Palm ships today. And Tablet PC sales aren’t exactly setting the world on fire, either.
“In 2001, Jobs explained: ‘You can’t imagine how many people think we’re crazy for not doing a Palm,’ said Jobs, ‘I won’t lie; we thought about it a lot. But I started asking myself, how useful are they, really? How many people at a given meeting show up with one? I don’t think early cultures had organisers, but I do know they had music.’ – Sydney Morning Herald, May 24, 2005
[Of course, we wouldn’t mind if an Apple-designed, Apple-branded mobile phone+PDA+iPod device became available, but Apple certainly doesn’t need Palm if they wanted to create such a product.]
Related articles:
Apple applies for more touch-sensitive display tablet patents – February 02, 2006
New Apple patents reveal portable tablet device, tablet video game application – January 27, 2006
Boston Herald writer: I earned a fatwa from ‘Appleheads’ over idea that Apple should buy Palm – December 23, 2005
Confused Boston Herald writer: Apple should buy Palm because iPods are not invincible – December 19, 2005
Apple Computer’s search for ‘Handwriting Recognition Engineer’ revives ‘Tablet Mac’ rumors – August 24, 2005
Emperor Gates’ new clothes: the failed mainstream Tablet PC – August 22, 2005
RUMOR: Apple Tablet exists running ‘reduced version’ of Mac OS X – May 24, 2005
Apple granted U.S. patent for Tablet Mac (with images) – May 10, 2005
Apple looking to add wireless connectivity to iPod, rumored Tablet Mac? – August 25, 2004
Apple hints at ‘handheld tablet computer’ with European design trademark filing – August 13, 2004
The Age ponders video Bluetooth iPod; tablet Mac possibilities – January 22, 2003
Apple readying secret iTablet for Macworld unveiling? – January 03, 2003
Tablet Mac watch begins – November 17, 2002
NO!
Because it’s dead technology… in 5 years time no-one will be using pdas
Instead Apple should develop their own handheld OS based on OS X which they could licence to mobile phone companies.
Apple also has their Inkwell technology, which should be able to be ported to a PDA device.
“Should Apple buy Palm?”
-No.
“Apple’s Ipod [sic] boom can hardly be sustained unless it can head off competition from PDAs and smartphones that can pack music players along with a host a other functions…”
-The iPod has zero competition from palm devices or smartphones, mainly because it doesn’t try to do everything poorly, just one thing well.
I have used a Treo 600 for two years now and it works well with Entourage. I’m about to switch to Mail – anyone have positive experience?
..”the latest Apple notebooks look like antiques beside the latest pen-driven Tablet PCs” which is why Macs are flying out the shops and Tablets are going no-where – (like most things Windows).
Everybody who’s panicky about Apple stock should dump out now! That’s it! Be terrified of the stock fluctuation and sell sell sell!
(that way, I can pick up more of it in the dip…)
The statement “product X has features that I want” is not equal to the statement “product X is a good piece of hardware that runs good software”.
Features are easy. Almost no feature is actually difficult to implement. Making good software is hard.
Forget Palm.
Buy Adobe if possible.
Not sure it would be allowed. Pretty sure Microsoft shouldn’t be allowed to buy Adobe but Apple might get away with it… guarantee support for Windows for 5 years:-)
Thats about how long Windows would have!
Stockboy and AAPL,
I’ve only got 200 shares and am really frustrated that they’re still falling; not because I think I’ll lose money (I’m convinced they’ll be at least twice the value by the end of the year)- but because I’ve got no spare cash to buy a few more.
I’m seriously thinking about taking out a loan.
As much as I’d like to see it Adobe price tag is way too high (and rightfully so).
Buuuut if it did Apple would not nix the Windows versions of Adobe’s products because that is a huge chunk of Adobe’s revenue (if not nost). Apple didn’t kill FileMaker for Windows when it acquired it so there is no reason to think that Apple would stop supporting Windows versions of any future software aquisitions.
I don’t think Apple should buy Palm either, but it’d be interesting if they did. Then they would have ended up owning both NeXTSTEP and BeOS.
I’d LOVE to see Apple buy Adobe, but I doubt it’ll ever happen. My fantasy list would be Adobe, Tivo, and Aspyr. That would be awesome.
“Stockboy and AAPL,
I’ve only got 200 shares and am really frustrated that they’re still falling; not because I think I’ll lose money (I’m convinced they’ll be at least twice the value by the end of the year)- but because I’ve got no spare cash to buy a few more.
I’m seriously thinking about taking out a loan.”
AAPL is dropping for a few reasons:
1. Adobe’s announcement
2. Apple’s announcement of lower quarterly revenue
3. Related to 2. Slow sales duue to Intel transition
4. Triggered sales at mutual funds etc. This will continue to drive the price down probably for most of this quarter.
I would wait to buy until the stock started to climb. You would still get a good deal compared to the drop.
I guess we won’t be seeing a stock split anytime soon.
Palm’s software sucks, is all I can say. I do consulting work on the side. I had to switch one of my customers to his PC because the palm software on the Mac would always get corrupted and not sync causing the well known lock error. Or it wouldn’t sync and cause his contacts to start duplicating. It’s always the com.palm.hs files. I don’t know why Palm can’t resolve this issue. This would happen at least every two weeks, not acceptable.
So I see know reason why Apple would want to waste there money on Palm.
“Apple didn’t kill FileMaker for Windows when it acquired it.”
Um, your history circuit is in need of maintenance. Apple never acquired FileMaker. Claris did, from Nashoba. Claris was a spin-off company from Apple but your point is still invalid.
Arrrrrrrrrrrrggghhhh!
Down $3.27 as I write this!
Panic.
(Is Steve like maybe thinking of selling Apple to Disney????)
Adobe is a real shot in the shorts…but then Steve told everyone the new Mactels were coming in June 2006 so if Adobe is bringing out the new Photoshop (and every other pro graphic program I need!) in 2007, that would have been only a 6 month wait.
Why (grumble) did Steve bring out the Mactels with not one Pro piece of software ready for them???
whoa is my stock portfolio…
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The only value of Palm is it’s portfolio of patents. This gives two options-
Buy Palm’s patents and license them back to Palm for a minimal price, allowing them to get some $ to go on.
Buy the company for nothing (or next to) and shut the thing down.
“Palm are basically a worthless company in a dying market.”
Typical fanboi mentality. Just because Palm decided not to dedicate any more of its scarce resources to maintaining compatibility with the Mac it becomes the enemy. It was a pure business decision, yet you fanbois take it all so personally.
The Treo is Palm’s future and it’s going gangbusters. You fanbois may not want that to happen, but it is happening. Deal with it.
effwerd.
My history circuit is doing fine. Thank you. Yes I’m aware that the original name of the company was Claris but it was going to make my message longer and it was irrelevant to my point. The point was that Apple did not kill the Windows version of FileMaker upon acquisition which is a fact.
Down $3.53!
Is there a crash on wall street or something going on???
Or that not so good news about all the iPod problems in the NY Times yesterday?
No and Why?
Palms work great with OS X.
BUT you need to drop an extra $40 for The Missing Sync, which actually gives you MORE functionality than what the stock Palm HotSync software used to give you.
Anyway I just replaced my old Sony Clié with a Palm TX. It’s a great little machine! Big, bright screen. Lots of non-volatile RAM; Dead battery? NO more lost info! It’s got Infrared, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, too! So, it can link to my PowerBook or home network in several ways. I even check my email from Wi-Fi hotspots.
I can use it to transfer files in memory via USB. Or use the SD card slot. You can even play mp3s or use it as a remote control.
I use it all the time. Keep running lists of things to do with BrainForest and sync it with the desktop version. Read AvantGo on the subway. Keep up with events and find my way around with Vindigo. Plus the calendars, alarms, the works.
The Treos are okay, but I’d prefer if they had the bigger screen and be able to use Grafitti or a software keypad. The Treo’s keypads are nasty little abominations.
Yeah, PDAs ARE fading, but stick the Treo’s phone guts into the TX and you’ve got a near perfect mobile device!
Ya know, sometimes people don’t want to have a device that does a billion different things. That’s where the usefulness of a device starts to wear off.
I use to think that way about a camera being part of the cell phone. But now I think it’s a must other wise your going to find yourself out of business. The palm miss the boat when by not being able to down load music.
I hate to say this, but the editors here should not make absurd statements. Those should be left to posters.
The truth is that for those of us who had Newtons, and knew others who did, the handwriting software was considered to be, at best, problematic, and at worst, almost useless.
When OS 2 came out, it got better.
But when I bought my Palm IIIC at the first MacWorld, here in NYC, I could see that Graffitti was FAR superior.
There wasn’t even a race! It wasn’t close. Graffitti 2 is even better!
Let’s not spout nonsence. THe problems with the handwriting was what caused the Newton to fail in the marketplace. If the software was as good as Graffitti, Newtons would still be sold, Apple’s marketshare would probably be in the teens, somewhere, and Scully would likely still be running the company.
I have hair in my Palm.
MW = myself.
“Should Apple buy Palm?”
NO!!!!
Palm is dead. Why buy a corpse?
I just bought my first Palm because my company is using it to make a paperless office. I can currently take a product app completely on my Palm T/X and auto sync it with the home office. Within the next year or two I’ll do the same with other products. I’m exited to say the least. I should also add that with all the time, money and training being invested in this program, I wouldn’t be surprised if my very large and rapidly growing company propped up Palm if the need arose. A few years ago the plan was to use Pocket PCs. The switch to Palm was surprising to some. It has me wondering just what the mutual incentives are. Whatever the case, I don’t see Palm going anywhere soon.
BTW, as someone who’s just put down his Newton to switch to Palm… NewtOS 2’s handwriting recognition is better. Even today.