Apple attempted to purchase Palm, was outbid by HP - report
Dan Frommer at Silicon Alley Insider on Thursday reported that Apple was in the race to buy Palm, along with Google and Research in Motion. That information comes from an anonymous source familiar with the negotiations.
"Apple was mostly interested in Palm's huge library of intellectual property and patents (450+ patents on file, another 400+ applications on file)," the report said. "And unlike some other bidders, Apple even seemed committed to funding Palm's operations, perhaps to challenge RIM's dominance in the keyboarded segment of the smartphone industry, our source says."
Frommer also said that Google was interested in Palm's intellectual property too, but was allegedly more interested in the company because it "thought Apple might want it. But Google supposedly didn't know Apple was bidding for Palm, so it didn't proceed."
But HP ended up sealing the deal, and now owns Palm's creations, including its much-touted webOS mobile operating system. The company plans to use webOS on future tablet devices that it hopes will compete with Apple's own iPad, also based on an operating system originally created for a smartphone.
Palm and Apple have one significant connection in Jon Rubinstein, who helped to invent the iPod for Apple. He is credited with discovering the 1.8-inch hard drive within Toshiba's labs, and placing it inside Apple's iconic portable music player. Rubinstein later retired from the company, where he was was last the vice president of the iPod division, in 2005.
Two years later, Rubinstein joined Palm, and just last year, with when its Pre smartphone went on sale, he was named the new chief executive of the company.
42 Comments
The most interesting part of the original article was how close RIM came to buying them. RIM's original bid was substantially higher than the bid HP won with, but revised their bid to just below HPs bid and lost.
RIM has done very well as a company main led by engineers with nowhere near the vision that Apple has. Had they won and had an infusion of palm (and so a bit of Apple) they could have become a serious threat to Apple in the consumer space.
It might have made sense for Apple to buy Palm... they could have used Palm as a way to compete against Google on Verizon's network, while always making sure that Palm was just a little behind the iPhone. Plus there's all the IP. Oh well, maybe Apple has better ideas for how to spend their cash.
The most interesting part of the original article was how close RIM came to buying them. RIM's original bid was substantially higher than the bid HP won with, but revised their bid to just below HPs bid and lost.
RIM has done very well as a company main led by engineers with nowhere near the vision that Apple has. Had they won and had an infusion of palm (and so a bit of Apple) they could have become a serious threat to Apple in the consumer space.
Yeah, I agree.
It seems some business-head at RIM may have thought they could hardball the price (since Palm was desperate at the time), and perhaps lost the whole deal. RIM + Palm would make for better competition than HP ever will.
I still like the iPhone far better than any of the alternatives though, (and especially kind of despise Android), so having Apple buy up Palm would be my best case scenario. Too bad neither scenario will ever happen now.
Interesting.. Can you imagine combining webOS tech with iOS? This would've put Apple on multiple U.S. carriers too..
Yeah, I agree.
It seems some business-head at RIM may have thought they could hardball the price (since Palm was desperate at the time), and perhaps lost the whole deal. RIM + Palm would make for better competition than HP ever will.
I still like the iPhone far better than any of the alternatives though, (and especially kind of despise Android), so having Apple buy up Palm would be my best case scenario. Too bad neither scenario will ever happen now.
Agreed on all points. RIM realized they overbid, but dropped the followup too far. I would stay with Apple, but it would have been interesting to see what the result of Apple DNA (via Palm) being infused into RIM would have produced. They have some great engineering talent, but if they want into the consumer space, they need something to match Apple's finesse.