Who will buy Palm? | Hacker News Reader

Who will buy Palm?

mondaynote.com

41 pointsdragonquest9 comments

Why wouldn't Google buy Palm for the patent war chest that it can use to defend itself against Apple? I am assuming of course that Palm have such a thing, but since they were in that market a decade before other smart phones they must have a lot that is useful.

HTC might also find it immediately useful.

Clever, considering that their WebOS is as if Android had been built by iPhone-influenced ChromeOS developers, instead of Newton-influenced Sidekick developers.

If it comes to a bidding war though, the patents are probably worth more to patent trolls, because they get to use them for big pay-offs not some anticlimactic cross-licensing deal.

Somehow Palm still has my sympathies. Maybe one of the other players besides Google and Apple would benefit from buying the OS? As a developer, I already feel a decided tiredness towards new mobile phone OS. iPhone - OK, I don't like it on principles, but it can't be ignored. Android - this is for me, but they won't have the whole market. Windows/Maemo: just leave me alone, I don't want to learn yet another OS, even if it's Linux. I already have my hands full with Android/iPhone.

WebOS however, is another matter. Somehow I have heard so many good things that I would be more open towards it. So maybe Nokia would fare better with WebOS than with Maemo? Guess they would be too proud to go for it, but still.

Did Palm license out WebOS at all (would they have licensed it out)? I just didn't like their hardware.

Windows/Maemo: just leave me alone, I don't want to learn yet another OS, even if it's Linux. I already have my hands full with Android/iPhone.

WebOS might be a great opportunity. If Google can merge the ChromeOS "browser-centric" interface with Android, then they could create a more seamless mobile <-> desktop experience.

However Apple is in the best position to do this. If they can merge the desktop with the iPhone/iPad Cocoa Touch experience, then they can create a seamless experience from the "digital hub" to all the various mobile devices. Just as a Unix-like command line lurks behind the OS X Desktop experience, a conventional Desktop could lurk behind an iPad-like experience. Perhaps interfaces like the iPad could come to dominate the everyday user's experience more and more, while today's typical workstation becomes the sole province for deep experts.

(Remember the classic PC/Automobile analogy. This would be like the disappearance of oil changes and spark plug cleaning and other home-garage tinkering from the routine experience of car owners, but if you are a true petrol-head, you can save some extra money and buy a MX-5 fitted out with a roll bar as a cheap, fun track car, which you'll have to spend lots of time with to maintain and fix to stand up to the wear and tear of serious driving.)

How strange to see JLG writing what is essentially an epitaph for Palm, which had acquired the remaining pieces of his (insanely awesome) BeOS.

well, not so strange, he recognizes a dead horse when he sees it... And the other remains of his BeOS live on happily in Android...

that's true. i used to work at be, and a startling number of my former coworkers are now at google, working on android.

He takes a lot of time explaining why Palm is dead, but his analysis of the assets falls somewhat flat. Sure, Palm is in a terrible position, but a case can be made for Google, RIM or HTC buying them - Google and HTC could be interested in the patents, RIM could see Palm as a step towards a less business oriented audience. I think it's more a question of finding the right price. Maybe you can't find a buyer at the current market cap of $1B, but what about a price that's closer to book value?

It's an interesting view of a former insider, but the arguments why Palm will go bankrupt don't feel conclusive.

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