After months of financial issues and company troubles, the company Palm has reportedly gone up for sale. Since the release of one of its latest smartphones, the Pre, Palm saw a decline in profits, which was enough for it to throw in the towel and begin looking for a buyer.
Bloomberg reported earlier that Palm went to Goldman Sachs Group Inc., as well as Qatalyst Partners, in order to find a company that was interested in buying them. It was said that Dell considered purchasing the company, but in the end they changed their mind, and currently it's unclear which (if any) other businesses have expressed an interest. HTC could be a potential buyer, as buying Palm would certainly help fight against one of their main competitors, Apple.
As Apple is currently in legal battle with HTC over software patents, it would be a decent middle-finger to the Cupertino giant. The sale hasn't been announced publicly so a lot of the details are unknown, but if a buyer comes any time soon, expect to see announcements made sooner rather than later.
Whilst those who bought the Pre stood by it, it didn't garner enough sales or popularity due to lack of international availability and harsh competition from the likes of Google and Apple. Hopefully, whichever company purchases Palm, if any at all, will be able to turn the business around, as Palm has played a big part in the technology world over the years and it would be sad to see them go.
There's a good chance that if a company does purchase Palm and continues to fund WebOS and the Pre/Pixi, it'll still see less-than-desirable sales, so it would be a big risk.
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