Is Palm Ready To Sell?

Unstrung.com is reporting that Palm buyout could be finalized as early as Thursday this week and that the going price will be somewhere around $20 per share. Rumors about Palm being sold have been floating around for some time now and at one point, BlackBerry maker Research in Motion was thought to be one of the bidders, although that no longer appears to be the case.

There are up to four buyers on the hook in all — two private equity firms and two rival gadget vendors. Texas Pacific Group is said to be one of the interested private equity firms and it is speculated — but not certain — that Silver Lake Partners is the other.

Nokia Corp is the key bidder in the vendor world. The number one handset vendor is said to be considering a bid at $19 to $20 a share. What may surprise some, however, is the talk that Motorola Inc. has been reconsidering its position and may try to block Nokia with a bid.

It is amazing that just a few years ago Palm was king of the PDA world and no matter what handheld you had, people commonly referred to it as a Palm Pilot. It’s almost like how today any smartphone with a QWERTY keyboard is referred to as a BlackBerry, but, I digress.

Written by Robb Dunewood on March 20th, 2007 with 2 comments.
Read more articles on Palm and Rumor Mill.

Why Google Wants a Phone

I was just reading an article over on the Washington Post that asks the question, “Why would Google want a phone?” The piece almost makes it seem like it is a mistake for Google to move into the already crowded mobile phone industry.

Commentaries have been mostly about rumors, and they lack a good motive for such a move. Google makes software, not hardware, and rumors that it was developing a PC a few years back turned out to be wrong–it was simply making software for PCs.

I decided to answer the question here and to make a long story short, Google wants a phone simply because it allows them to move from being the middle-man in the content delivery system to just being the man.

(more…)

Written by Robb Dunewood on March 20th, 2007 with 5 comments.
Read more articles on Competitors and Rumor Mill.