As some of you long time RIMarkable readers may know, I am on the record several times stating that Research in Motion should buy Palm.  The last time that I felt strongly about this was back in late 2008 before webOS came out and Palm’s stock price was down under $2.00.

Even though webOS is a strong mobile operating system, in my opinion, Palm just can’t seem to get right when it comes to running the company.  Their stock price today (at the time of this posting) is down 19% or so to $4.60 and the downward spiral, according to some analysts, is going to continue downward to $0.  (I’ve never heard of a $0 target before)

I will go on the record again…

Research in Motion should buy Palm!

If for no other reason RIM should buy Palm just in case the the next BlackBerry OS misses the mark.  I know that mobile operating systems take years of development and RIM is already heavily invested in whatever BlackBerry OS 6 is going to be, however, if OS 6 doesn’t do all the cool stuff that Windows Phone 7 will do and what the iPhone, Android, and webOS do now, the BlackBerry’s chances in the consumer market are all but shot.

I am not saying that RIM should just completely scrap the new BlackBerry OS for webOS.  webOS, however, has legs, and isn’t the reason for all of Palm’ woes.  If RIM can pick up Palm on the cheap, I say go for it.  They would have a solid OS to pull ideas from, a small, but, loyal base of fans that may stick with webOS if they know a company like RIM is standing behind them, and RIM may be able to divert BlackBerry users looking to defect to a line of devices still in their family.

webOS is too good a mobile OS for it to just die off with Palm.  Someone is going to by them.  It may as well be RIM…