Texas Instruments May Buy a Chunk of PalmSource
According to several online sources in Germany, the Berlin newspaper Berliner Zeitung recently ran an article that said Texas Instruments is in negotiations with Palm Inc. to take an equity stake in PalmSource when it spins off from Palm. If such an agreement comes to pass, it is not yet known what effect it would have on the Palm platform.
It could lead to a situation similar to Microsoft and Intel in the PC market, in which one chip manufacturer is able to greatly influence the operating system that runs on its chips.
On the other hand, PalmSource has repeatedly emphasized in the past that the Palm OS, beginning with OS 5, will be processor agnostic as much as possible.
Last summer saw the creation of the Palm OS Ready Program, in which chip manufacturers like Intel, Motorola, and TI would write software that would allow the Palm OS to run on their processors. The whole point was to allow Palm licensees to choose the processors that best fit their needs, rather than being locked into ones from a single company, like they are now with the Motorola Dragonball family.
Palm itself has already announced that TI will make the chips that will power it's OS 5 handhelds. However, the other licensees haven't yet made similar announcements. They are free to choose any ARM-based processors from any company, though they are almost certain to choose ones that part of the Palm OS Ready Program.
Intel has been working especially hard to attract interest from Palm OS licensees in its new XScale family of processors.
While Palm has made it clear it eventually intends to spin PalmSource off as a separate company, it is not yet known when this will happen.
Thanks to Andy Epstein and Stefan Deyerler for the tips. -Ed
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RE: More Shareholder Dilution
RE: More Shareholder Dilution
RE: More Shareholder Dilution
RE: More Shareholder Dilution
It seems Palm is giving free shares to TI so that it is perceived as dilution, if this is indeed true.
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Lie is the future.
RE: More Shareholder Dilution
No, no, no, no. Did I say "no"? TI is going to buy, as in give money for, the PalmSource shares it gets. It is getting nothing for free.
RE: More Shareholder Dilution
RE: More Shareholder Dilution
RE: More Shareholder Dilution
Or you could say the company (who owns tractor) was diluted but not being diluted right now.
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Lie is the future.
RE: More Shareholder Dilution
Let's see if I can make a first grader understand. If you have $100 and 5 people, you all get $20. However, if you increase to 10, then everyone gets $10 (dilution). However, if $100 grows to $500, then everyone gets $50. So, where is the dilution in this case?
RE: More Shareholder Dilution
RE: More Shareholder Dilution
what happen after 2004-5? This is critical year when PPC is predicted to surpass Palm units sold. Will Palm once again forced to search for something to replace the OMAP DSP just so it can offer something attractive?
RE: More Shareholder Dilution
I think Palm will still lead in units sold but PPC will lead in revenues due to higher-priced, high-margin machines.
RE: More Shareholder Dilution
Unless Palm has some magical manufacturing trick, it is very unlikely that Palm can produce PDA with similar features as ppc (ie. screen size, memory amount, battery size, audio, etc etc) at significantly lower cost. What's more taiwanese manufacturers start picking up PPC and climbing the learning curve, which is to say that if iPAQ trend hold, strong-ARM class PPC would go for about 3-400 around 2005. As usual big industry name like HP/Toshiba/COmpaq have purchasing power over component. So that's on price parity.
the argument that current Palm models can keep selling until 2005 to hold market share is difficult to swallow since even now those models sale already plateau-ing compare to early day of Vx. Unless Palm is thinking to go ultra low margin disposable sub $50 handheld by 2005, holding everything constant, sale will decline.
Three yrs are a long time in handheld. Two yrs ago PPC have exactly 0% market share and palm 95+%. Whose to say that current form of PDA will not even be here anymore (just like Psion/MS clamshell) and everything will be funky wireless PDA with jazzy Nokia look.
RE: More Shareholder Dilution
Where did you get that rate from? The first WinCE devices were released 5 years ago. Microsoft may have changed the name to escape all the bad press but PPC is just WinCE repackaged. So in 5 years PPC has about 20%. That's a 4% a year trend.
RE: More Shareholder Dilution
Others speculate...
"Texas Instruments is in negotiations with Palm Inc. to take an equity stake in PalmSource when it spins off from Palm."
Many people, believe that if TI will invest in PalmSsource, this could be a sign that Palm will not be spinning off the unit. I think it would be better to spin off PalmSource and maybe build some cash reserves at Palm, but if TI invests, Palm might not do the spinoff... This is all speculative of course, and the fact that companies are showing an interest in Palm is always a good sign...
RE: Others speculate...
Speculative, at best!
So, whether or not this story is true, time will tell.
I like my Palm!
Remember
Mystery Investor Loans Palm $50 Million
http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_Story.asp?ID=2729
RE: Speculative, at best!
Not neccesarily bad
RE: Not neccesarily bad
TI should buy the Palm Harware div. & Apple buy the OS!
Apple would be the best company to develope the Palm OS and TI would make and develope "Palm" brand PDA's and Phone using thier new Chip(s).
RE: TI should buy the Palm Harware div. & Apple buy the OS!
RE: TI should buy the Palm Harware div. & Apple buy the OS!
so, it's bad scheme all in all. It would be very depressing for the entire BeOS team to join Apple that way.
RE: TI should buy the Palm Harware div. & Apple buy the OS!
RE: TI should buy the Palm Harware div. & Apple buy the OS!
I dont think Apple should develope thier own OS for a PDA since Palm has so many apps and support but for Apple to take over the Palm OS and give it the time and money it needs (Apple is sitting on Billions in the bank)to maintain its market against Palms rivals M$ and Symbian.
Palms hardware is getting out-classed by Sony and Palm needs to do something fast.
RE: TI should buy the Palm Harware div. & Apple buy the OS!
RE: TI should buy the Palm Harware div. & Apple buy the OS!
Maybe this is the reason why Sony wont make Clies with Mac OS compatibility out of the box if Apple will have their own version of the Clie NR for Macs exclusively.
Which would fetch more in a spinoff? PalmOS or PPC?
RE: Which would fetch more in a spinoff? PalmOS or PPC?
Chop Another Palm Off
If anything, and a big if, TI buys PalmSource I suggest their executives read Andrew Butter's book first. It is amazing that the PalmOS has survived so far so long, let alone the competition from Microsoft.
And now, if it gets sucked into another corporation, I seriously wonder if that little OS will yet survive another round of racquetball. Perhaps, with Palm, Inc it may languish. I am not surprised since the current CEO is equally incompetent about Palm and its unique position as the previous CEO did. All Eric cares is the bottomline. Palm needs someone like Jobs - who cares about the bottomline equally as much as the product.
The product/platform has survived all Microsoft, Phillips, Compaq, HP, Casio (and more) combined onslaught in the PDA market and still came out tops. Through the bungling of one owner after another, and despite all, it is still pretty much here. It all boils down to the great foundation the original team placed that have allowed Palm to continue sailing the rough seas. But another perfect storm?
My guess is at TI, another of those headless monster of a company, all they care about is how many more chips they can sell and will mould PalmSource into their nice little box to fit in.
And that my dear readers, does not bode well for us.
Let's Chip In And Buy PalmSource Ourselves
The thousands of programmers and users all subscribe to "shares" in this open-source collective and the OS is entrusted with a brain-trust board that oversees its development, marketing and sales. It is almost like creating a Linux/Java kind of business model.
Despite all that has happened to Palm, it has survived the competition and without a Steve Jobs! Think about it. Java has been evangelized with big bucks, Windows with FUD and MacOS by the sheer charisma of Jobs. But Palm? Palm, since losing it's de facto frontman - Jeff Hawkins - has continued to grow without the big bucks, without FUD and certainly without a persona (Yankowski - not!)
It has continued to the chagrin of the PPC camp because of 2 things: the beauty of the OS and its loyal (although often battered) users. If it gets sold to TI - trust me, another soulless CEO or worst still, getting it absorbed into one of TI's grand scheme of things and you can bet the very thing that has kept PalmOS going for so strong so long will die.
If I were at Handspring - I ought to think about where this is heading. Yes, perhaps Handspring has the power to develop a new "PalmOS" and is planning that - just in case.
If I were at TI - the PalmOS truly has a unique situation. It survived organically despite its owners stumbling over the years with Microsoft chomping at its heel. And that organism is its loyal users which may not survive another corporatization of its OS.
RE: Let's Chip In And Buy PalmSource Ourselves
Palm Inc License the current operating system kernel from Kadak corp. Palm doesn't own the kernel.
while the new OS. How many time has Linux community ask/wonder if BeOS could be made open source. (Now what is the chance those BeOS engineer after all that actually want to make their work "Open source" community owned. Yeah right, they got to be the last people in geekdome who still crave to become ultra rich from their brilliant work. why do you think they join scrappy Palm Inc.? Of course to show that their work is so brilliant as to turn around the hopelessly primitive Palm OS with the next generation, and redeem their BeOS dream.
About all the open source business, PDA scene has already got an OS. It's call LINUX. (hey you can even dual boot Linux/WinCE in iPAQ now. On top of the daring Zaurus market experiment. I seriously doubt any geek in the planet is salivating over current OS4.1 technology.)
So there. back to square one.
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More Shareholder Dilution