“Cannacord analyst Peter Misek said Tuesday he’d ‘recently learned’ AT&T would delay launching the two Palm handsets due to what he said was a ‘long list of technical issues’ with the smartphones,” Sutherland writes. “Ehud Gelblum of Morgan Stanley, said Tuesday he believes Palm’s only hope is to close its manufacturing and license the webOS. However, others see Palm as a ripe target for acquisition, notably either Google or Apple.”
Sutherland writes, “Apple has said Palm could be on its short list of companies likely sued for patent infringement claims. Although Palm would unlikely be able to finance a defense, “Google could buy a law firm and not even notice the drop in its bank account,” Sherman said. Apple could also buy Palm to deny Google that legal cushion.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Here’s what we wrote over 14 months ago: Apple could buy Palm this afternoon with petty cash. In fact, maybe that’s what Palm and Elevation Partners – and Wall Street speculators – are really shooting for: a buyout by Apple or some other company. Apple would buy Palm in order to absorb a would-be competitor and/or gain access to certain patents and technologies and/or to prevent another company from making the acquisition. – MacDailyNews, January 9, 2009
I checked and the market cap for Palm is about $900,000,000. The patent office on line search showed 322 issued patents assigned to Palm. How many of those are junk or totally irrelevant would take a lot of attorney time to figure out. A patent portfolio would be useful, but at an average of 3 million each not counting Patent Office maintenance fees and a lot of pending patents that would need attention, the cost of obtaining and managing such a portfolio would be costly. Palm is dust anyway. Let them die in peace. When you have the bankroll Apple does, you can litigate and argue your patents endlessly. Google needs the patents more than Apple does.
Yawn… zzz… nooo… Apple better spend the money giving a big beach BBQ to its employees…
It would make more sense for RIM to buy Palm, since the Blackberry maker seems the furthest behind in developing decent touchscreen devices.
The iPhone OS is hands down the best, and from there it probably goes Android (assuming you actually have the latest version), WebOS (which employs some technologies that at least arouse some excitement to people who won’t buy Apple products) and the new Microsoft 7 Series (which is totally unproven, of course, but will no doubt be something along the lines of what Windows is to the Mac — an inferior copy).
RIM has the Storm 2. It’s the least innovative of the also-rans and they could stand to win the most from the acquisition.
Yes Apple should purchase them for what was once a great innovator and great company, then mercifully lay them to rest. No massive bailout for CEO’s or stock holders or anything like that. More like comparable jobs for those who want to continue within Apple.
Business = Chess
Play to block your opponent.
Apple faces potential monopolist issues from our wonderful Totalitarian government in WDC now, and I would not want to bet that the “Great Leader” would allow a purchase of Palm.
If Palm’s patent portfolio is worth anything, then HTC or Nokia should buy Palm as a defensive move against Apple.
Imagine a series of patents:
– Apple for the Newton
– Palm for the Palm Pilot series
– Apple for the iPhone
– Palm for the WebOS
Now, think of all of the technologies that are derived from these: handwriting recognition, basic touch screen interfaces, multi-touch, phone computing, etc.
There are obviously some great patents at Palm, and great people outside of upper management. Imagine the strength of Apple’s handheld and touch screen patent portfolio and the long-term security that it would bring to the company while making life excruciating for competitors.
Next step? Wait for RIM to drop, snap up its patents.
This article describes the patents that Palm owns and Apple could buy:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/28/apple-vs-palm-the-in-depth-analysis/
Only if they got it dirt cheap, just to kill their brand and get their patents and top talent
@ gregmills, I want to agree with you, but if Google bought Palm (they paid almost that much for a mobile ad company with no revenue), Apple could end up paying that much for ONE patent infringement — or worse, Google could use it to get some kind of reciprocal patent licensing agreement with Apple.
Isn’t it worth a billion to nip that in the bud (I say as if it’s only pocket change).
@bobo
Good point, but the brand is dying all by itself and the top talent left long ago.
Why commit homicide if the victim is already dying?
I think Apple should buy Palm for their patents. They could hardly be accused of ‘buying to kill a competitor’ when Palm are pretty much dead anyway.
As an owner of several good-at-the time Palm products, I’ll be sad if disappear but they have only themselves to blame … they failed not only to innovate for years, but they didn’t listen to their customers crying out for adoption of then existing technology. Basic stuff like wifi.
No….
AAPL or GOOG should buy PALM only to deny MSFT buying it.
MSFT can cause a lot of problems with PALM patents and IP.
Note that I said cause problems. Not use the IP.
I think they should not buy Palm. Even though they have a great patent portfolio I still believe that they would go obsolote within a couple of decades. Apple should keep innovating and buy the right ingredients (companies) to help them stay as a mobile leader. Let google buy Palm, they would only get outdated technology while Apple continues to innovate.
It would be poetic — given that Palm gained it orginal PDA software platform from none other than Apple itself!