“The company is working with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Frank Quattrone’s Qatalyst Partners to find a buyer, said the people, who declined to be identified because a sale hasn’t been announced,” Saitto and Levy report. “Taiwan’s HTC Corp. and China’s Lenovo Group Ltd. have looked at the company and may make offers, said the people.”
Saitto and Levy report, “Palm, which helped pioneer the market for personal digital assistants, would offer suitors the WebOS software that competes against mobile operating systems from iPhone maker Apple Inc. and Google Inc.”
MacDailyNews Take: There’s so much wrong with that last sentence that we have to interject: Apple pioneered the market for personal digital assistants. So much so, in fact, Apple’s then-CEO coined the term Personal Digital Assistant (PDA). Looking at sales numbers, Saitto and Levy need a new dictionary; “competes” is the last thing beleaguered Palm does with Apple. And, let’s not include Google until we see just how many of Apple’s patents Android has infringed upon, shall we?
Saitto and Levy continue, “The Sunnyvale, California-based device maker surged 32 percent last week on the Nasdaq Stock Market on renewed speculation of a takeover bid. Before the rally, the stock had plunged more than 60 percent this year, dragged down by disappointing sales of the Pre and Pixi phones.”
MacDailyNews Take: Beleaguered Palm’s stock chart chronicles the company’s death throes. Wait, did somebody just say, “We’ve gotta pump this before we can dump this” or did we just imagine it?
Saitto and Levy continue, “Chief Financial Officer Doug Jeffries last month forecast sales in the quarter ending in May will be less than $150 million, compared with the $300 million average of analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg at the time… Dell Inc. looked at Palm, though it decided against an offer, according to two of the people familiar with the matter… Palm may burn $80 million every three months for the next five quarters as competition in the smartphone market intensifies, Berenberg Bank analysts including Adnaan Ahmad wrote in a March 25 report. The company held $592 million in cash and short-term investments at the end of its fiscal third- quarter, according to the report.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: What we wrote nearly 15 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
• Palm’s Pre dog and pony show is nothing more than takeover bait. They simply do not have the resources necessary to create another mobile platform, especially one that is superfluous. If Palm’s Pre is not a ruse, then those responsible are kidding themselves. – MacDailyNews Take, January 21, 2009, just after beleaguered Palm unveiled their Palm Pre and webOS.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Chef Stephen” and “Chas” for the heads up.]