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Palm founded in 1992. Apple offers to buy for $1Bn in 2002? Average of $100M per year in business...

Palm sells to HP in 2010 for $1.2Bn. 1Bn in first 10 years and only $200M in the 8 years that followed? Wow. Should have sold in 2002!

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I assume people with a stake in Palm are now not so happy now about not having sold to Apple. I wonder how that would have worked out, though.

From my memory of what Palm devices were like then and seeing what's happened since, IMHO Apple dodged a bullet there. Palm was an overvalued, overhyped company with a product line that was already hitting technical limits due to design ties to a too-slow processor and too-small screen, and one that's spent all the time since fighting to stay up-to-date and relevant.

OT - a bit of checking a while back revealed that the larger current Smartphones such as the Samsung Galaxy S are roughly the same footprint as an old Psion Revo. I never had a Revo but did have a 5Mx and could touch-type on it fast enough to take notes. How I would love to have a phone with a keyboard that good, not the silly little things we get stuck with now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psion_Revo

I have a Palm Pre. Previous Palm devices weren't that great from the little I've used them. WebOS is amazing though. It is, without exaggeration, the best piece of software I've ever used.

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