Palm takeover 'chatter' swirling again, this time it's RIM (Update: Mainly Lenovo) 62
A bunch of readers have let us know that Palm's stock is jumping up right now - as of this writing it's up 15% over yesterday's close.
The reason? More takeover chatter which appears to stem from a report from Next Inning Technology Research, who put out a newsletter suggesting that RIM would be a good candidate to acquire Palm.
Update: as Phantom_Pain notes in the comments, the bigger rumor might be Lenovo. You may recall that they purchased the ThinkPad Laptop division from IBM and did a pretty good job with it after the acquisition. Lenovo could potentially be more interesting than the earlier contenders - but then again they are also looking fairly focused on Android right now.
Of course, we're still down on the RIM prospect, original reasons why after the break.
Color us unimpressed - there are plenty of reasons for RIM to take a pass on Palm. Nearly a year ago, a buyout might have made sense - as CrackBerry Kevin himself said last May. Now, however, RIM has a fairly clear roadmap to provide better web browsing and 3D gaming experiences with their own BlackBerry platform. webOS beats BlackBerry on a number of fronts, but you can't just mash the two together and, frankly, RIM is doing pretty well with entry-level smartphone users right now anyway.
webOS is obviously a huge asset, but it's an asset that's not plug-and-play into another company's mobile strategy. As with previous buyout chatter related to Microsoft, Dell, and Nokia, a buyout by RIM doesn't seem to make a lot of sense from a technology standpoint or a corporate culture standpoint.
Thanks to everybody who sent this in!
62 Comments
I really should have invested in palms stock pre-Pre. I knew it would have made me a good amount of dough when it was down to like $2 per share.
It would make things easier if Palm got bought out by RIM. I wouldn't have to decide between my Pre or Blackberry. It wouldn't make sense for them to buy Palm out.
yes, Carry on...
I purchased when it was at $4... and was a bit bummed when it slumped to the $3.70's the following days
Enjoying the rally... probably temporary though.
The question now is sell and get out without losses... or stick with the original plan of going long w/ the possiblity of a buyout or recovery.
i know taking advice from someone online is never good, especially when it comes to money and finances... With that said i am sad to say that i think AT&T will boost up those numbers using Luke Wilson. Those commercials really irk me, but now they can speak truth about multitasking using a WebOS device.
Ps I need your name bank account and routing number, and for convenience sake, your SS# too. :P
I am no power broker... and far from even an active investor... Just had a little money I could use/loose and felt the buying was risky... but right w/ great potential.
Besides the fact of being a Palm/Pre fanatic!
just did a bit of quick research and if i had bought when it was 2 a share i would have made 3000 dollars at their highest and 300 if i sold today... Sigh
Yes, you could have if you were prescient enough to pick the exact bottom to buy at and the exact high to sell at. Good luck on that.
Well i should have stated that it was all in theory. However I did pick the exact bottom give or take 10 cents at the time of its minimum price. I just didn't want to part with the cash since it was sorta my emergency money for car troubles or what not.
I think I am EXTREMELY lucky to have gotten in at $3.73 which is just a few cents above the low this year...
I also wouldn't be looking forward to RIM buying Palm as they have their own software. Now someone like HTC looking to buy Palm would make much more sense and would benefit both parties. HTC's hardware + webOS? It's a match made in gadget heaven!
I have been thinking the exact same thing. RIM makes no sense what so ever...much less sense than Nokia or Dell.
HTC seems like a nice fit, except for the fact that HTC makes Android and WinMo devices and is on every carrier. Not sure what their contracts look like but they would have to continue producing phones in 3 different OS's...they could not just stop producing WinMo and Android.
Lenovo might also be interesting. They have a lot more money in the bank than Palm with their diversified business portfolio and entry into the huge Asian market would be simplified/sped up.
True HTC could not just stop producing WinMo and Android yet.
However if HTC, BB, or any other company is going to buy Palm, they are also purchasing Palms entire staff which includes hardware and software engineers. Since BB runs its apps in a JVM it would be easy for Palm to implement current BB apps in a Java plugin, or HTC could provide Palm with much cheaper R&D costs as they have a lot more resources at their disposal.
I would personally like to know who has the majority votes at Palm as far as voting for a buyout, how much influence Elevation Partners has on a buyout, and just how much stock Ruby and even Ed Colligan have.
EP has about 30%, which is functional control.
They are saying Lenovo might be buying Palm
http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2010/04/07/palm-spikes-on-takeo...
18% !!!
The rumor I hear is that it's Lenovo that considering buying Palm
Blackberry Slider (Hardware) plus WebOS 2.0 = Heaven
Here is the other rumor that Lenovo is going to buy Palm
http://www.tradingmarkets.com/news/stock-alert/palm_lnvgy.pk_palm-climbi...
You beat me to it. Lenovo is the one that's being rumored today and the reason for the uptick. Not RIM.
I would rather have Lenovo buy Palm. RIM may just absorb the patents\OS and kill off the Palm brand. Lenovo is known for their quality products, and does not have a real smart-phone. This may keep the Palm brand alive.
They could kill off the brand too and just call it Lenovo.
Ride it out ladies. Ride it out...
If Lenovo/China buys Palm, I'm gone.
It's built in China anyways. Besides they might just keep R&D here.
webOS + ThinkPad build quality = Win
+1
Me too...my loyalty is with Palm...If they are purchased by another company I would be open to other high-end Smartphones...I
Lenovo/China is just one of many foreign co's buying up all the American brands. I don't see a point in sending any more $ to China than we already have to. Let's hope they don't buy Palm.
Actually money would come here. They already make the phones in China anyway.
Ok......... What part of Chinese based company don't you understand? Where do you think future profits would end up???
Yes future profits (if Lenovo buys Palm) will end up in China. But the buyout money will come to USA. What part dont understand?
The Chinese Govt is the largest shareholder of Lenovo. I'm just sayin' that I don't plan to continue supporting Palm if Lenovo buys them. You can if you want.
nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
To me Lenovo seems like a better fit then anyone else I've heard. Do I see a Lenovo WebOS Pad/Slate in our future?
Rumoured but unlikely. Lenovo has their own mobile phone division, and uses oPhone (flavour of Android) as their smartphone platform.
But actually come to think about it, I wouldn't mind. As long as they name it the WorkPad.
I don't want the sytem and independent way of palm being disrupted by another company who has other interests, besides making webOS the one system that combines a closed and open system at the same time...palm is struggeling, there are bumps on the road, but do we stop our drive or do we carry on? We carry on driving and trying to avoid the bumps...if possible find a better road...but we carry on and we'll reach our aim.
Carry on palm.
Man I'm soooooo tired of hearing the takeover rumors either do it or just shut up and let it happen if it's gonna happen it is so frustrating to have hands down the best mobile OS and nobodynreally knows it most pol still ask me what kind of phone I have when I pull out my pre that is sooo sad.
webos+bbm=mass consumer appeal. I would buy that in a second.
Could this mean a Lenovo webOS tablet!?!?!
Ok, here is where it all started on Lenovo's possible bid for Palm.
http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewarticle/articleid/4010698
Stock is almost up 23%, this might be legit. There really is no other smartphone acquisitions that may help Lenovo's mobile operations.
Keep calm and carry Palm.
RIM makes alot of sense after you use their phone and realize that although mail push works great, it's about all that works. An interface like webos with a battery efficient mail push would make webos/rim the biggest contender to the iPhone.
I'd sell my Pre in a *heartbeat* and give up all my development efforts if RIM bought Palm. I have to manage several Blackberry's for my clients, and there is nothing good about those phones. The interface is incredibly difficult to use, email randomly stops working, the desktop software takes nearly an hour to install on a modern computer.... I'm sure RIM would do nothing but ruin Palm.
I
I can't wait for the day Palm's stock is up 300 points and their revenue is worth over a billion...I bet people will STILL be talking about RIM or someone else buying Palm.
I own RIMM and want to sell it so i hope this get's denied soon cause it just killed a nice up day rimm was having. Deny it, let Rimm pop, so i can unload some of it.
as a side note. RIMM releases a whole lot of phones every year so were they in the situation palm is in i think it would be pretty clear that right now they'd be coming out with several new phones. We probably wouldn't be speculating if they were releasing anything before the end of the year like we are with Palm. So their deeper pockets would be a benefit.
I doubt it would happen, but IF Lenovo were to buy Palm, think of the sweet WebOS tablet that they could put out.......
There would be no way for the IPad to compete against a WebOS tablet made by Lenovo.
glad i bought 132 shares when it was at 4 dollars :D
I think HTC would be the best buyout partner.
They're small like palm but none of us can deny that they make top tier phone hardware.
Apple is suing them for Android mainly, and if they acquired Palm they'd have enough patents probably to launch a countersuit against Apple.
They could drop the fragmented Android operating system and WebOS could be their primary OS.
not only that but you put some of the Sense engineers on the Palm team and you'd have a lot of progress being made at a faster rate than Palm by themselves work.
HTC is a big name associated with great phones, and as far as mindshare goes Palm is still up there. A merger or buyout between these two could be great for them.
I like HTC, had the droid eris for a month but i switched to palm because Android freezes so much. but i like my palm pre plus a lot more! the phone is good and the camera even though its 3mp it takes way better pics that on the 5mp HTC eris or Droid hands down, and since my rebel xti broke i use my phone for pics right now
where do I get this cover from? it's incredible!
ah, received an answer: https://www.gelaskins.com/skins.php?SkinID=522&DeviceID=61&s=a&CategoryI...
I think rim would cripple webos, because webos is allways pulling things from the internet in the background, and rim's excuse for not having great internet is the "looming spectrum crisis"
I don't see why RIM needs Palm or WebOS. The still own 43% of the US Smartphone market and completely dominate the corporate market.
Yes they need a better web browser but they already bought a webkit based mobile browser.
I think Lenovo maybe the best buyer as Lenovo has good history on acquisition like IBM thinkpad division and they have done pretty good job on keeping the original thinkpad Japanese R&D center (and througout world) and the promotion of the Thinkpad brand. I guess Lenovo may keep the palm brand and the US Palm with better R&D support with more resources, and of coz better and low cost manufacturing. so why not!
dont care who buys it. as long as they keep improving webOS and hardware is up to standard or better. It just seems like a bad business decision to buy palm and not implement webos as a platform, so i doubt any company will do that.
hopefully you guys all read my post about the stock premonition i foretold and headed my advice to go buy stock NOW while its cheap (my stocks have increased by $1/share in 2 days)so we can boost the company up (OUR company)and help them show the world what we already know.
BUY STOCK NOW. if anything we Precentralers can have mob rule controlling share so some greedy co doesnt take over and kill it for a profit or insurance loss ala walstreet du jour.
or at least we will create a buzz as it skyrockets like it did last time i had this premonition (i earned $15/share in 2 or 3 months and paid for my pre with stocks still leftover in my portfolio)and make more people put faith/$$$ into the company that deserves to succeed for their innovations and NOT be sold by the greedy impatient shareholders.
The Web OS platform needs $billions for R&D and marketing plus excellent industrial design and manufacturing plus existing relationships to carriers. Any company that either fails to provide those or has made strategic investments into other platforms is not a matching suitor. That said, matching suitors are:
- Sony (with or without Ericsson)
- LG
- maybe Motorola
- maybe local Japanese cellphone players like Sanyo or Panasonic
Companies like RIM, Samsung, Nokia are out of the picture as they have their own OS. Companies like Dell, Lenovo would not be desirable as they have no experience with designing phones and no relationships with carriers. If they bought Palm they could only make problems worse. The worst that could happen would be some unknown private fund from Russia, Arabia or China with too much money on their hands and no understanding of the market whatsoever.
My personal favourite would be Sony. I loved my Cli
PS: RIM is deeply invested in Windows and Android. They would basically have to bet the company on Palm. Not likely.
If Palm is acquired by any company other than Dell or HP I will get rid of my Pre. I love my Pre but I will be forced to use Motorola again. My final decision to get a Pre was that Palm is an American company.