“Rumors circulated late last week on Wall Street that Palm Inc. was putting itself up for sale, which one industry analyst said would be a good idea,” David Haskin reports for Computerworld.
“‘I think it would be a good thing if they were purchased,’ said Gartner Inc. analyst Ken Dulaney. ‘They’re doing well now, but they need more capital to do the things they need to do.’ The rumors late last week drove up the price of Palm stock. Palm spokeswoman Marlene Somsak said late Monday that the company does not comment on rumors and speculation,” Haskin reports.
Haskin reports, “Apple might benefit from acquiring Palm, [Dulaney] said. ‘What they’d get from Palm is carrier knowledge. But they’d have to pick up a whole OS.’ By that, he said he meant that Apple is getting into the phone business with its much-ballyhooed iPhone, based on Apple’s OS X, but some believe that the mobile phone business presents complications that Apple may not have considered.”
MacDailyNews Take: “Some” = Palm et al. Anyone who believes Apple has not considered all “complications” that the mobile phone business presents should send in their Special Olympics entry posthaste.
Haskin continues, “Also, Palm’s Windows Mobile Treos would not necessarily be a good addition, given Apple’s culture and traditional antipathy to Microsoft’s platform.”
MacDailyNews Take: Apple certainly does have a traditional antipathy to tasteless, counterintuitive, mediocre-and-worse products.
Haskin continues, “In any case, Dulaney said that now was a good time for Palm to be looking for a buyer. ‘It would be a good thing,’ he said. ‘They’re profitable and there are some positive things there that won’t be positive for all that long.'”
Full article here.
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“MacDailyNews Take: “Some” = Palm et al. Anyone who believes Apple has not considered all “complications” that the mobile phone business presents should send in their Special Olympics entry posthaste.”
God knows I’m a big MDN fan, but as a parent of a developmentally disabled child I find using my child as a “stupidity” reference just plain offensive and totally without wit or humor. Unfortunately, my child and millions of others like him through no fault of their own become easy objects of derision in our society.
MDN: You guys have demonstrated time and again that you are extremely clever individuals. Please, next time, find a less insensitive way to drive home a humorous point.
There is nothing Palm has that Apple needs that they can’t get for a hell of a lot less than $1.65 billion (Palm’s current valuation).
-jcr
MDN: You guys have demonstrated time and again that you are extremely clever individuals. Please, next time, find a less insensitive way to drive home a humorous point.
Sadly, I’m not surprised!
This site occasionally leans towards sophomoric, right-wing insensitivity, which sadly attracts many fellow travellers.
What this teaches us is that extremely clever is no guarantee of either good taste or compassion.
Given that Apple is about to unleash the iPhone neutron bomb on Palm, Blackberry and others, it’s a mystery as to why anybody would believe that Apple should splurge over $1.5 billion for a company that is about to have the valuable end of its business decimated by a more elegant, technically innovative competitor.
Just to gild the lilly, if Apple have managed to shrink OS X to 512MB, delivering all of the tricks we’ve already seen in iPhone plus all of the potential that we can imagine in the platform, exactly what would Palm be bringing to the party?
Just say, if you’re that clueless you must manage a Fortune 500 company in Redmond WA.
I have a mentally handicapped child and I thought the ‘Special Olympics’ joke was hilarious.
The retard didn’t get it though.
Not a chance. Apple has software right now that does everything Palm does, only better.
It’s a good time for Palm to sell itself now because the iPhone hasn’t been released yet.
MDN, for the sake of a quick quip, you have sullied your journalistic integrity and denigrated millions of people challenged with intellectual disabilities. – Get a grip !!!
Info below, cut n pasted from the Special Olympics web site.
“Children and adults with intellectual disabilities who participate in Special Olympics develop improved physical fitness and motor skills, greater self-confidence and a more positive self-image. They grow mentally, socially and spiritually and, through their activities, exhibit boundless courage and enthusiasm, enjoy the rewards of friendship and ultimately discover not only new abilities and talents but “their voices” as well.”
To ‘twilightmoon’ and ‘Short Bus Driver’ and ‘the Truth’ you are sad individuals, and i question your level of reasoning and rational thinking.
Are you people amoral or immoral?
As for Palm “Fanatic Realist” sums it perfectly.
For those of us who remember, Palm now owns the intellectual property of what used to be Be Inc. which was developing BeOS for both PPC and Intel machines. Apple came extremely close to using that OS for the basis of OS X. As things fortunately turned out, they decided to use Steve Job’s “child” (NeXT) as the new foundation.
Many of the developers of BeOS have since been employed by Apple and would love to get their hands back on some of that work. They had developed some very interesting concepts that might have potential to fold into OS X.