It's another day in the Palm buyout rumor mill. According to Bloomberg, HTC and Huawei Technologies have emerged as the frontrunners in the offer process. According to individuals familiar with the talks, Palm contacted Huawei in February to begin "preliminary discussions." HTC also remains as a a viable player, with company CFO Cheng Hui-ming stating that the company is analyzing the possibility of operating their own software platform. “We continue to assess, but that requires a few conditions to justify” (refering to operaing their own software).
“If you look at the successful smartphone players, like Apple and Research in Motion, a reason for their success is that they have their own platform,” said Steven Tseng at RBS Asia Ltd. “The negative is the amount of resources they’d need to allocate."
Bloomberg points out that Palm's operating system accounted for 0.7 percent of the smartphone marketshare in 2009. In comparison, Symbian (used on most Nokia devices) commanded 46.9 percent, RIM's BlackBerry OS held 19.9 percent, and Apple's iPhone OS accounted for 19.9 percent. According to analysts, Palm could receive as much as $1.3 billion for the company, based on the company's $1 billion market capitalization and a "30 percent premium recently paid in tech deals."
Additional contenders include Lenovo, ZTE, Microsoft, Nokia, and Motorola. If you had the power, what company would you like to see purchase Palm (or would you keep it as a separate entity)?
