Monday, July 19, 2010

Apple, Google, and RIM All Tried to Buy Palm

HP may have won the bidding war, but who else was serious about acquiring Palm, and why?

HP announced its $1.2 billion acquisition of Palm at the end of April, but it wasn't until last week that all the i's had been dotted and the t's crossed. However, now that everything is all signed, sealed and finalized, we learn that Palm came close to belonging to several other companies, ones with far more experience in the smartphone business than HP.
When word first got out, HTC was the obvious buyer to most observers. Caught up in a patent suit with Apple, acquiring Palm's patent portfolio would have given HTC some serious courtroom ammo. However, that deal fell through and once it did, it was anyone's guess who would acquire Palm.

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