Who is to join the team of smartphone competitors? Palm up for sale
Posted in Palm
Palm Inc., a creator of the Pre smartphone, has put itself up for sale. Upon releasing financial results its stock plunged causing a great disturbance at the market. In general, for the past six months, the company's stock has dropped 69%. Now the struggling handset maker is looking for a buyer.
The company pioneered the hand-held device with the advent of the Palm Pilot in 1996 and now enjoys a good brand at the US market and some good technology, including its webOS. Some experts even dare call it the most innovative smartphone OS currently available at the market. Though the hardware can't keep up as well as Palm application development can not compete with full scale iPhone application development and Android application development. And, to kill the joy Palm’s financial numbers seem to be worse than what one might think and a crowd of companies ready to take it over, is thinning out.
Taiwan HTC was the first to show interest in the takeover deal. Its excitement may refer to the fact that the company could expect some solid technological gains which would be of use in its pending lawsuit with Apple. But upon reviewing Palm’s financial numbers, HTC drew back burying public expectations for an awesome mixture of devices and operating systems.
So far, Lenovo remains the only serious contender out of Asia expected to show interest in Palm. It seems not to be in the least intimidated by possible dreadful financial info of Palm or it may be just another desperate trial of the computer company to get in on that handheld smartphone market. Lenovo does not have significant presence in it. The acquisition may enable the company to enter the lucrative mobile segment. And mobile ambitions are shared by all computer enterprises.
Despite evident financial problems, poor analysts’ recommendations and disturbing rumours damaged Palm continues its competition struggle. Recently French SFR and Palm, Inc. have announced that the Palm® webOS platform will soon come to France. Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus phones enter the French market on April 27 at SFR's online store and on May 11 in all SFR stores and in retail.