Business Insider: Apple, Google, and RIM were all contenders to purchase Palm

By on Jul 15, 2010 at 4:22 PM
mobile July 15, 2010

palm-app-catalog

Now that the dust from the HP Palm merger has settled, some new details are starting to emerge. The Business Insider is reporting that Apple, Google, and RIM all had serious conversations with Palm about a potential acquisition. An anonymous source “familiar with the matter” tells BI: Apple and Google were interested in Palm’s 450+ patent library and pending patents, while RIM “had the deal in their hands” before things went south. The report goes on to say that Nokia was no where near the deal. Hit the read link for the full report.

Read

Tags:
, , , , , ,
28 Comments

Related Articles

  • EggoEspada

    Damn. Would be awesome if Google acquired Palm. :/

    • Dustin

      I disagree. I am quite anti-Apple and anti-Google, and Palm going to either one of those would be depressing. We need more than a Google / Apple world. I myself am waiting for WP7, but I am keeping an open mind to see what HP does with Palm.

      • Perspective

        Waiting for WP7? Wow. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

        As a side note, I have never understood why anyone is anti-anything. Either you like something or you don’t; “dislike” is just wasted energy. I’m an Apple fan, but I don’t hate Microsoft or Google. I mean, what’s the point? What does it accomplish?

      • JMR

        Yep. Without these companies, the technology world would be a much different place.

      • T

        I dislike your dislike of disliking.

      • thecalmapplecritic

        You know which co. I criticize by my nick and as much as I like seeing how Android has grown,NO it’s NOT a Google/Apple “world” just yet.For “smartphone app’s world” maybe…NA market are just local.Until we’re seeing true convergence of mobile techs that can include the Japanese and South Korean quirks there’s nothing to worry about that.Euro/Scandinavian Nokia’s Symbian and MeeGo initiatives are still on btw and as fast as I’m losing faith in Symbian,they’re technically not dead yet..at all.

        The only problem I see maybe from Google’s failure to follow through with the deal is that they’re probably not sure if they can court their same Android mobile devices’ partners to follow suit to WebOS.Most likely the core WebOS functions getting integrated INTO Android were Google’s true gambit.

  • RT

    shocker, apple was after even more patents they could use to sue people with.

  • RockNStuff

    HP is Palm’s best savior possible

  • 3 Phones Jugglin

    A blend of WebOs & Android wouldve brought me to tears…

  • Woozle Wuzzle

    Apple could of benefited a lot by acquiring Palm such as multitasking and alerters

    • NuShrike

      More likely Apple would’ve use the patents to sue everybody since they could then claim they predate all current smartphone tech.

    • Brett H

      If i recall correctly they did benefit, the lead designer of the alert/notification system left to go to apple or google. I can’t recall which one at the moment, either way during the acquisition someone made sure to scoop him up.

      • jeff

        He went back to Apple

      • Lazaro

        yes and one of the Palm UI guys went to Google

  • Bert

    The thought of a Blackberry with WebOs is something that will keep me up at night- why-why-why-why couldn’t you have done it RIM????

    • thecalmapplecritic

      On RIM’s current track record of rehashing and facelifting the same models in the portfolio?Trust me buddy you won’t lose that much sleep.Heck they only even simply tweak the SAME comm chips in 2 so-called slightly diff models to differentiate band features?Not even WebOS can save their hardware design stagnant inclinations UNLESS they’re willing.to really kill off BB OS.

    • badonkadonk

      Well, given when this potential acquisition was going on, it seems like RIM chose to pick up QNX instead. Which no one on this board seems to have noticed or cared about as they continue to bash and bitch and rave about their “out-dated OS from like 1996 lolercoaster”…
      I will grant that the UI on BB’s is a little stale compared to the likes of Android and iOS but feature / function wise their “actual” OS is quite good. I’m expecting OS6 to be a much-needed improvement on the UI side, but I’m concerned that it won’t be released for in-market devices…

      Their HW is also pretty robust but getting old… where’s the Cortex / Snapdragon phones, RIM?

  • Carl

    What about HTC? The blogosphere was all a flutter about them buying Palm for awhile. Then supposedly they saw Palm’s balance sheet and walked away… quickly. So where do they fit into this picture? I don’t see any mention of them in the article.

  • http://alghienkad06.student.ipb.ac.id thea

    greatt

  • mikestorm

    Palm gave RIM, Jobs a try, but they ended up blowing it instead.

    If I had a nickel for every time I heard THAT.

  • NT

    Had Apple got Palm, it would have been:

    “We will vigorously defend and protect our newly acquired IP. I cannot be clearer than that.”

    -some apple exec.

  • JonHolstein

    Qualcomm would have been best in my mind.
    They were probably not even on the list, as Palm didnt use their CPU.

    qualcomm have their own OS, breew or something… semi smartphone. ok, but not good. They could have kicked that out, without any problems… sold it to iNQ, that uses it perhaps.

    Qualcomm could then easily signed HTC up for WebOS. (and perhaps even RIM/Blackberry)
    and a lot of other manufactors using their hardware.
    So we would have seen the largest spread.

    And they have been visioning smartbook touchscreen computers, with GPS, Accelerometers, 3.5G+, and all, at least since early last year… about a year before we saw the iPad, that is… and probably long before that even.
    So surely they would have pushed for tablets to run WebOS, as well.

    But HP, will hopefully turn out quite a good place for Palm.
    Im hoping HP will get the WebOS designers, to make a WebOS looking interface to run on top of Windows. For HP convertibles, tablets, and all in one touchscreen computers.
    And perhpas, they could even make WebOS run on x86 and use the real WebOS, as a quick boot OS, on the same devices mentioned above… that would be something.
    And iPaq used to be a really good line of handhelds and mobiles… lets hope they will get back on track, and do some really good smartphones.
    And perhaps HP will put WebOS even in portable media players… for WebOS fans, a iPod touch competitor running WebOS, could partner well with any mobile.
    I dont really get the priter interaction, but well, perhaps it will be great for exploring the network, or connecting to the web for prints, if you dont have a computer near by.
    For slates, well as long as they still do products with windows, I dont mind. WebOS, makes it a iPad competitor, windows makes it to a whole other product, so they both could fit well in HPs lineup.

    Nokia is better off as they are… symbian for lower end, big market devices.
    MeeGo, for mobile computers… the future of smartphones.

  • Blog Retards 4 Life

    Palm is a dead brand and product. Please stop filling this blog with posts about it. There is no future in mobile for Palm hardware.

    • JJGM

      Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve heard that declaration over and over again for ten years. And Palm lives on.

    • Anselm

      I’ve played with iPhone 4 and was playing with the Evo yesterday. Both very slick sexy pieces of hardware that are more than most of us deserve to own.

      But for elegance and usability, neither touches WebOS on my original Pre. That little plastic brick is an extension of my brain and I’m holding my breath to see what HP does.

  • johdaxx

    Seems quite clear that Apple would have bought Palm just to eliminate them. That’s life in the big city…uh…valley.

  • http://buku.um.ac.id fajar

    mantap..

  • http://www.bgr.com jimmy

    I like shopping, the one reason is I am a girl that enjoy wearing beautiful clothes,verey cool shoes

    and collecting many information about fashion ,another is that I have many girl friends who enjoy

    shopping no less than me. We like to disscuss brands,like jimmy choo wedding shoes and so on. Say coat,I like manolo blahnik sale, its cool style and unique design is

    fascinating, About dress,

blog comments powered by Disqus