Palm Potentially Open for Buyout or Merger

er, uh, it's been a perpetual joke/rumour/wish/fear...

I appreciate Sony's being on the Palm side of the fence, but I really don't want them controlling the PalmOS.

I guess we would all end up using Memory Sticks, too.

I'd seriously start looking at Linux PDAs.

"I guess we would all end up using Memory Sticks, too."

Yet another ignorant post about Memory Sticks. This is capitalism, companies produce standards in order to make money; Palm's 'universal' connector is proprietary technology, does that mean you'll stop using Palm PDAs?

At least Sony licenses its Memory Stick to other parties; this list is complete with the world's leading technology brands, both from West and East (note, none of them were forced to join the Memory Stick Forum):
http://makeashorterlink.com/?D1BB21C61

So what if you had to use Memory Sticks for everything? Quite frankly, the sooner that happens the better. Companies worldwide (listed above) can develop technologies based around the same standard, so we don't have to have incompatible devices, and since there is competition (noticed how there are different Memory Stick brands with varying prices?) consumers can only benefit.

For reasons too long to go into, I totally hate Sony. However, I will defend the right of companies like Sony to make money in free markets.

If you like, you should go back to your communistic Linux village where the right to profit from innovation is taboo and anyone who shows initative is an outcast. As history has shown us in a brutal fashion, innovation only arises through competition and thus the only thing the Linux model will do is take us a step backwards. Society cannot function through free distribution. Equally, technology will remain *relatively* static.

So wake up, the Linux model does not work - you know it doesn't when the movement gets eaten up by private companies and is backed by folks like AOL (the biggest financial rapist of consumers in history).

* I think it would be good if anyone with a brain ignored the previous poster*

I don't know what drug you are on, or whether you are another Micro$oftie, but where has most of the innovation in computing come from?
Internet:
Originally developed by US Defence, but then used by *Unix* geeks in universities, who bought it to the masses.

Email;
Commercial innovation? I think not. Invented by student.

WWW;
Populated by, and developed by; Linux/Hacking community. They made it what it is today.

Computers;
Charles Babbage, the inventor of the original computer never made a cent.
Alan Turing; Invented binary in his university thesis.

Innovation?
Compare a Windows server and a Linux based server in uptime, and then talk to me about innovation in the commercial sector.
While you have obviously been drugged by M$ FUD, linux has been innovating for years, and still remains to be free.
Microsoft? They sell a "new" office suite every two years for $200+ (Aussie$).
Has word processing changed dramatically in the last 5 years? NO.
Linux has succeeded where others have failed.
We, the Linux/Hacker community, are a threat to M$ where noone else is.

Please, look through history and see how most of the inventors who changed our world, never made a cent.

it seems obvious, that nerds in their free time, will make a vastly superior product, working with thousands of others, than a bunch of corporate programmers, stuck with marketing departments and deadlines.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 13yrs Old, Flat Broke
Odds of ever affording a palm without resorting to crime: 1765:1

Linux will never be a successful mass market product primarily because of the people that make all of the decisions. It is a hacker's, engineer's, or sys admin's dream, but it isn't usble by the regular computer users that comprise the vast majority of the potential market. This is not signifigantly changing as time goes by.

Sure the installers are better and KDE/Gnome have much prettier icons than they used to, but installing/removing software, system maintenance, etc. is still way beyond the capabilities of most users.

If you want the future of UNIX for the masses, go look at OSX. It ain't perfect, but it is the first OS that is usable by virtually anyone but still has real UNIX (with all that entails) hiding underneath.

OK - everbody, back to the mud slinging.

I don't see APPLE or PALM giving away their OS for free!!!

Everyone will have their opinion about the pros and cons of every OS in existence, and everyone will think they are right. ;) Hehehe.. But let's try to keep this thread on topic before it gets out of hand. I'd rather read about Palm OS related discussions here, not Linux. If I want to read more about Linux discussions, I'll go to slashdot. :)


Jim

The main disadvantage of memory sticks is the comparatively small memory sizes. This is a disadvantage that has been plagueing SD/MMC until recently. While CF has capacities up to 512 MB (and microdrives up to 2 GB), memory sticks are currently available up to 128 MB.

Of course some may say SD/MMC is being upgraded to 256 MB and 512 MB so memory sticks will follow soon. This is possible but not very likely since Sony is introducing its new (smaller) memory stick duo, so they will probably stop developing the "classic" memory sticks. (I know you can use memory stick duo with an adapter on the current devices, but who wants to play around with an adapter?)

Now a lot of people will say "what the hell do you need so much memory for?". On a 128 MB-Memory Stick you can store approx. 25 MP3-Files which is pretty lame. Or you can store approx. an hour of video at 160x160. If you want to use Kinoma at maximum resolution landscape format you will need a 512 MB-storage for a complete movie of 2 hours.

Due to lacking storage the user cannot use Sony products to their full potential!

"Linux will never be a successful mass market product primarily because of the people that make all of the decisions. It is a hacker's, engineer's, or sys admin's dream, but it isn't usble by the regular computer users that comprise the vast majority of the potential market. This is not signifigantly changing as time goes by."

I absolutely agree :) I have never owned a Mac, but i have seen the superiority in the OS.
Unfortunately, the average user doesn't even know there is an alternative OS.
I tell my friends how unreliable windows is, and they will laugh and say, go buy a Mac.
I explain Linux and they are interested, and even try it. The problem is that the nerds of today have been brought up in a MS world, and most of us teens were weened on DOS ;)

Because Linux has virtually no corporate entity, it cannot market its product.

Linux is made for nerds, by nerds. It is a great OS but it needs to be brought to the masses.

Bill Gates did a great job in bringing computers to the average Joe, but he made computing unreliable and frustrating as well. MOst people think that the constant crashing of Windows is an unavoidable problem.

While the masses are uneducated about LInux and its advantages, we will be stuck with the blue screen of death :)

What we really need is schools to use Linux



=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 13yrs Old, Flat Broke
Odds of ever affording a palm without resorting to crime: 1765:1

you think todd bradley from gateway is any better

>> However, Benhamou is also CEO of 3Com, so it seems unlikely Palm would be sold without his blessing.

Actually, Bruce Claflin is CEO. Eric Benhamou is chairman.

> Bruce Claflin is CEO. Eric Benhamou is chairman.

This is not correct. Benhamou is both Chairman and CEO. I don't know who Bruce Claflin is but he isn't a top executive at Palm.

Palm's Top Managers:
www.palm.com/about/corporate/executive.html

Benhamou will continue to be CEO until PalmSource is spun off. Todd Bradley, who is currently the CEO of just the Solutions Group, will then assume the position, as the Solutions Group be be all that is left of Palm.

---
News Editor

Ed,

I think 3com doesn't own any Palm stocks.
They distributed all to 3com stock owners already.

I had to agree Palm hardware has not done any much
better.

PalmSource under David Negal seems to be doing
a much better job.

But until they sign up some more good licensees,
I still think PalmSource hasn't done a good job.

> This is not correct. Benhamou is both Chairman
> and CEO. I don't know who Bruce Claflin is but
> he isn't a top executive at Palm.

Well, he may not be a top executive at Palm, but your
article says:

> However, Benhamou is also CEO of 3Com, so it
> seems unlikely Palm would be sold without his
> blessing.

That is factually wrong -- Benhamou is Chairman of the
Board of 3COM:

http://www.3com.com/corpinfo/en_US/investor/resources/executivebios.html

Also, I do not think that 3COM still owns a majority
of the shares of Palm.

Oliver

> Benhamou is Chairman of the Board of 3COM

Thanks for the correction and I fixed the article. Sorry I didn't follow what you were saying the first time.

> I do not think that 3COM still owns a majority
of the shares of Palm.

It does according to the people I talked to and, frankly, I trust their expertise more than I do some anonymous person.

In any case, what is most important is Benhamou is showing no interest in selling Palm, which means such a deal is unlikely.

---
News Editor

Ed,

This information is public.
You talked to the wrong people I believe.
3com should have 0 share of Palm now.

I was a 3com stock holder and still is a Palm
stock holder.

People who has money can buy out Palm. It is not up to
Eric. But that will be a hostile takeover.
Most companies don't want to do that.

It's amazing the stuff that comes thru on these sites sometimes. 3COM is indeed still an owner of Palm stock. As recently as June 19th, they even sold some more off. 62,363 shares sold for $94,791.

> It does according to the people I talked
> to and, frankly, I trust their expertise
> more than I do some anonymous person.

Better get more reliable and knowledgable sources --
I think it's a bit embarrasing for a site called
"Palm Infocenter" to not know who OWNS Palm (or
rather, who doesn't).

Here's a 3COM Press Release snippet:

http://www.3com.com/corpinfo/en_US/pressbox/press_release.jsp?INFO_ID=7535

-------------------

Santa Clara, Calif., July 28, 2000-- 3Com Corporation (Nasdaq: COMS) announced today it has completed the separation of Palm, Inc. through the distribution of all of its 532 million shares of Palm, Inc. (Nasdaq:PALM). After the close of market yesterday, July 27, 3Com shareholders were issued 1.4832 shares of Palm, Inc. common stock for each share of 3Com common stock held. Cash will be issued in lieu of fractional shares. As a result of the distribution of shares of Palm, Inc. common stock, Palm is now a fully independent company.

-------------------

It really didn't take THAT much effort to find it...

> In any case, what is most important is Benhamou
> is showing no interest in selling Palm, which
> means such a deal is unlikely.

Then what's the whole point of this story that we're
commenting on? Slow "news" day??

BTW, I may not have signed *in*, but I did sign my
posting, so I wasn't actually an anonymous poster.

Oliver

By the way, Ed, let me add that I generally appreciate
your work and the news provided by your site. But
a story titled "Palm Potentially Open for Buyout or
Merger" just makes little sense (isn't virtually
any company open for Buyout or Merger, maybe with the
exception of the Evil Empire?) and seems to be more
FUD (or space filler) than anything else. Just look
at the ever so meaningful comments it is triggering...

Oliver

For two years Palm has been totally unable to be purchased or merge with any company. That just changed this week. You are saying that's not news, Oliver? You and I have a very different definition of news.

I agree, this is among the worst pieces I've seen on this site. From any perspective -- business, financial, or news -- the analysis is poor and basic facts are wrong.

August is historically a slow PDA month, so I guess Ed really has to reach now.

Anytime anyone says anything on the Internet, someone else leaps up to say it was the stupidest thing they've ever heard. If the Ed. said the Sun rose in the East, someone would disagree with him. I don't 100% agree with the Ed. but I trust him more than I do some anonymous coward.

Seems you all know how to do a great Palm news site, so why don't you knuckleheads stop trolling here and go create your own site? Then nobody here will have to listen to you whine like little b@st@rd stepchildren. Ed puts a lot of time into this site and I for one appreciate it, even on "slow" days. Get a grip folks, it's not like you pay to use the website or anything.

Oliver, do us all a favor and silence yourself. Thanks.

Guys, if Ed doesn't want critical comments about his articles, he can open the site only to his closest friends and relatives. As long as there are open boards here, people will post as they see fit.

With respect to this article, there is a real confusion between reporting facts and presenting his opinions. I doubt Ed is seriously offended that people point out mistakes in what he has publically posted. What exactly are the rest of you jumping in to defend? His incorrect assertions? The fact that people find it reasonable to correct him? Kudos to accuracy and Oliver.

This is news.
The fact that it is much cheaper now to buy
Palm than a few days is definitely a big news.

But I do wish the fact is more accurate.

I do appreciate your work, Ed.

> For two years Palm has been totally unable to
> be purchased or merge with any company. That
> just changed this week. You are saying that's
> not news, Oliver?

No, it was predictable (or rather, known to happen)
for the past two years.

To me the only thing that was "news" in the story was the
Benhamou is CEO of 3COM and that 3COM owns a majority
of the Palm shares. Unfortunately -- or rather
fortunately -- both was also not true ;-)

> Oliver, do us all a favor and silence
> yourself. Thanks.

That's not worth further comment.

Oliver

Oliver, you're clearly too good for this site. Please return to the higher plane of existence from which you descended. Or are you just an arrogant jerk? I can't tell which it is.

> Oliver, you're clearly too good for this
> site. Please return to the higher plane
> of existence from which you descended.

Thanks for the suggestion. The more I read
here today, the more I agree with you. Obviously
there is a large number of readers who enjoy
spending their time "discussing" how to buy Palm with
their piggy bank or decry for the twentieth
time this week the evilness of Sony's memory
stick technology.

Oliver

Oliver - I think you should start your own Palm site where we all can come daily just to read your musings.

I love this guy!

Oliver: Please stick around, your dogged pursuit of reality and fact is refreshing... Just remember, throughout history, any call for critical thinking leads to persecution...

I'm all for critical thinking. That's not the issue here. The issue I see is that people want to complain about how this, that or the other thing isn't "newsworthy". Well, news flash, folks, that's the editor's decision, especially when you don't pay for the news! As I said before, if you don't like it, vote with your feet, or better yet, one-up Ed by creating a better site, but quit whining already!

Oliver, it's good that you are pointing out factual discrepencies. I applaud that. But stating your opinions as gospel is arrogant at best. The part I said silence yourself about is the opinionated whining, such as described above. Now the above paragraph was for all the whiners, however you make a great example as you have been the most vocal.

I say this article IS news simply because it's interesting. *I* didn't know that there was a premium for purchasing Palm previously (say that ten times, fast), and I wonder who would offer to. It's just a bit of fun speculation on a SLOOOW news period. Otherwise, folks would complain (and HOW they would complain) about PIC not updating enough.

--JM

Palm's current market capitalization is around 787 million dollars (less with this stock slide), and Palm has $300 million on hand. It is possible that someone could purchase palm for a bargain basement price of $400 million (to buy an entire MARKET, and OS) if they leveraged Palm's cash on hand (I'm not a financial wizard, so i might be using terms somewhat incorrectly here).
Thats a pretty tasty deal right there, even if they paid a nice premium of $2-3 a share, the price must be very tempting for some companies....

Actually, it is trading at more than $1 a share now. I hope your piggy-bank has $596,600,000 in it, because that's Palm's market cap.

Normally bad companies gets worse.
There is a good reason why Palm only worths
this much. Though it is very cheap considering
they have such a popular OS.

Do you know that 2 years ago they have more than 1B
dollars in the bank and a much more popular
OS then?

Would you pay 1B for Palm then? They have more than
1B cash at that time. :-(

ted

596 Million aint that much. All we need is 50% + 1 share of the total market capitilization and we could become the owners and kick out the mainly incompetant top people at Palm. So if we can get 300 million dollars together we can take over the company. Then we use the company to make the handelds we want.

Who's got some money to spare?

- david

I kick in 50 bucks!