Palm used to be a huge player in the mobile industry. Unfortunately, the company didn’t have much luck with the Pre and webOS, and eventually both the Palm brand and webOS were sold to HP. HP then sold webOS to LG, which it uses for smart TVs. We haven’t heard much about the Palm brand lately, but now it looks like it could gain some new life, just like webOS has.
In recent weeks, it’s been discovered that Palm’s website now redirects to mynewpalm.com. That site shows only the Palm logo with the words “Coming Soon” and “Smart Move” pulsating beneath it. But that’s not the end of the story.
It’s been discovered that a company known as “Wide Progress Global Limited” recently acquired Palm’s name, trademarks, and logos from Rishi Varma, an HP legal counsel. A person named Nicholas Zibell represented Wide Progress Global Limited, which is important because Zibell is also President of the Americas and Pacific arms of Alcatel Onetouch and TCL Communication. Wide Progress Global Limited is also listed as the registrant for the aforementioned mynewpalm.com site.
One more thing that’s worth noting is about that “Smart Move” caption on the mynewpalm.com site. It also happens to be the name of Alcatel Onetouch’s new brand platform that was announced at IFA in 2013.
So yeah, it certainly looks like Alcatel Onetouch may have acquired the Palm brand and its related trademarks and hidden that acquisition behind a shelf company. Unsurprisingly, Alcatel Onetouch hasn’t issued a statement on the matter.
Obviously this is all speculation for now. Alcatel Onetouch could certainly use the Palm brand, though. While we haven’t heard the Palm name in quite some time, it’s still got some power with consumers, something that Alcatel Onetouch has less of. Alcatel could use the Palm brand to get itself some more attention in the wireless market, especially in the U.S. LG currently owns webOS, so it seems unlikely that Alcatel would produce new products using the card-based platform, but it could introduce us to the “New Palm” that produces new Android devices.
For now we’re left with more questions than answers, but with CES and MWC around the corner, that could change soon. What do you think is going on here? Would it be a good idea for Alcatel Onetouch to resurrect the Palm brand?
