Palm Attempted to Buy PalmSource

BusinessWeek is reporting that Palm put a bid in to buy PalmSource. However, Palm was outbid by other companies and ultimately decided that the deal didn't make sense.

According to the article, major U.S. and European handset makers jumped into the bidding for PalmSource and drove the price too high.

Palm CEO Ed Colligan stated "There was a point beyond which we didn't think it made sense," in an email to Palm employees.

Japanese mobile software company ACCESS agreed to acquire PalmSource for $324 million dollars. The sale was at an 83% premium based on the market closing price of $10.09 on September 8, 2005.

ACCESS plans to make PalmSource a wholly owned subsidiary. PalmSource will continue to support Palm OS Garnet and will work on finishing its next generation Palm OS for Linux products.

The article also states that for Palm, Access deal is the least objectionable outcome, since it prevented Palm OS from falling into the hands of a competitor. It also talks about how a Windows Mobile Treo is due early next year.

Thanks to Gaurav and Pat Horne for the tip.

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Perhaps I just don't get it...

adamsmark @ 9/20/2005 2:53:38 PM # Q
When Palm split into PalmOne and PalmSource, I simply didn't get it. Why sell half your product when the other half is crucial to your business plan? Buying it back makes little sense. My vested interest in this is that I really don't like the Windows operating system, but it seems Palm is shooting itself in the foot.

RE: Perhaps I just don't get it...
hkklife @ 9/20/2005 2:59:05 PM # Q
A shame that the Voice isn't here to elucidate further on the matter but in a nutshell:

Palm Inc. was still riding high on the wave that carried them to greatness in '96-'99. Remember, they really rose to prominence under US Robotics becuase Hawkins & crew had free reign and there was nothing even CLOSE on the market at that time. Things started getting ugly under 3Com and then got much worse after they were spun off into Palm Inc. After Handspring's crew jumped ship and started up a successful licensee company, Palm's beancounters thought they could take over the market from an OS standpoint by lining up a row of top-flight licensees spearheaded by Sony. As many have commented on this site, it was likely just a carefull plotted plan all along to line the pockets of certain individuals at the expense of the company/companies' long-term health, market share, and the investors' $. It also bought PalmSource enough time to keep tinkering what their various OS efforts until a buyout could occur.

That basically put 'em in the pickle they are in now. Combined, of course, with Yankowski, Nagel et al, several years of continued sales/shipment dropoffs by Palm/PalmOne, p!$$ poor quality control, the spectacular flameout of Cobalt, the distractions of changing company names/logos/HQs, the China Mobilesoft acquisition, and the bailout of Sony and all of the notable licensees producing SHIPPING POS product. Only Palm's acquisition of Handspring & the Treo 600 saved them. The importance of cheap retail-friendly products like the Zires & T|E cannot be underestimated either, as far as keeping Palm's string of profitable quarters intact.

So by launching a M$-powered Treo, Palm's again forsaking their future in exchange for having some (theoretically) spectacular sales over the next couple of quarters. I figure the Treo name/UI/formfactor/public goodwill has enough momentum left to give good (even great initial) sales to another POS-based variant and one or two WinMob-based products before the market passes Palm by one final time.

In hingsight, the split shoulda never occured, Sony would have been better served by a less aggressive release schedule and more consistent product design, and Handspring should have established by Palm as a loosely-affialted subsidiary intended to explore new markets (think Aiwa and Sony). It's hard to say much about Cobalt because OS5 was intended as a stopgap OS designed to last a year or so and no one ever figured Cobalt to never materialize on a shipping product.


RE: Perhaps I just don't get it...
JarJar @ 9/20/2005 3:07:56 PM # Q
I agree with you regarding the split. There was no good reason to split into PalmOne and PalmSource. (Except to hide debts and liabilities in PalmSource and then self-fantasize that PalmOne was now profitable)

Buying it back is necessary when the OS is necessary for existence. (Palm won't survive as a WinMobile maker) Palm claims that "it didn't make sense". I'll cynically suggest that Palm just couldn't scrap the money together. If they had pulled it off, it would have been a great magic trick because they would have spun off PalmSource at a high price and bought it back on the cheap.

The next step that will occur down the road is that Access is going to want to recoup their investment and they will start demanding higher and higher licensing fees for Palm to continue using the PalmOS. When this happens, Palm is going to be sorry. They'll be stuck because they can't afford to pay the fees. This is akin to somebody in debt who sells their house to become a renter.

RE: Perhaps I just don't get it...
rasty @ 9/20/2005 3:09:10 PM # Q
Yea, it will be interesting to see how the new treo runs given the Windows os is a resource hog...!

RE: Perhaps I just don't get it...
hkklife @ 9/20/2005 3:14:27 PM # Q
Supposedly it'll have 64mb of NVFS RAM. The 240*240 screen will be its dealbreaker, as HP's just starting to find out.

I suspect Palm will try to push out one more POS-based Treo (maybe in January? Remember, the i705 launched after Christmas but before the traditional spring release cycle) with comparable specs (EVDO, maybe PTT, 1.3mp digicam, 64mb NVFS) before making the big WinMob Treo splash next spring.

RE: Perhaps I just don't get it...
neuron @ 9/20/2005 3:22:07 PM # Q
If Palm decide to release winmob treo next spring, they have to think about the resolution. Almost all new PPC phones out now have 240*320 2.8 inch LCD while still maintaing small form factor. Most of them have both bluetooth and wi-fi, some of them even have GPS builtin. I have no confidence how Palm can succeed with a $699 winmob Treo if it has a 240*240 LCD, without Wi-fi, Without any extra, maybe 32MB RAM.

RE: Perhaps I just don't get it...
JarJar @ 9/20/2005 3:27:13 PM # Q
"I have no confidence how Palm can succeed with a $699 winmob"

You are absolutely correct. This is why Palm can never become a major WinMob maker.

DELL makes computers and they have the purchasing power to buy and manufacture components more cheaply. DELL will always be able to make the same winmob device more cheaply than the equivalent Palm device.

In the short-run Palm might do okay if they have enough loyal customers who will purchase a winmob from Palm instead of DELL. In the long-run, price will always win. Palm can never compete against a competitor that has access to cheaper components.

RE: Perhaps I just don't get it...
AdamaDBrown @ 9/20/2005 3:28:52 PM # Q
If Palm were wise, they would build one piece of new Treo hardware: 520 MHz, 32 MB RAM/128 MB flash, BT, WiFi, 320 x 320, and either GSM/EDGE or CDMA/EVDO. Then offer in versions with Cobalt or Windows Mobile 5. Get around the WM resolution issue either by running it in a hacked 320 x 320 (it's not like Palm shies away from hacking the OS) or by running 240 x 320 in the center of the screen, with 40 pixels of spare space available on either side for battery status and other things, the way that GSPDA does it.

That way, they would only have one set of hardware to manufacture, and wouldn't have to worry about becoming overstocked on one Treo or the other, because they could always just reflash them to the other OS.

RE: Perhaps I just don't get it...
Sam H @ 9/20/2005 3:39:11 PM # Q
I wonder if the $30 million palmOne paid PalmSource for the Palm™ trademark seems like such a good deal now?
RE: Perhaps I just don't get it...
hkklife @ 9/20/2005 3:40:49 PM # Q
Well, the silver lining in all of this is that for those shopping in the impulse or the student/casual PDA users price ranges (ie sub $300), Palm's got that market entirely locked up now that the X30 Dells are gone.

Palm would be wise to consider a two-pronged attack:
A. Have all traditional PDAs running POS & retailing @ $300 or less while killing the LifeDrive after the 2nd generation version comes out
B. Put most of their eggs into the Treo basket while spending some serious $ on R&D and quality control.

Imagine a 320*480 Treo with a physical screen size smaller than the T5's but with a flip design w/ hard number buttons integrated into the flip cover ala Qualcomm PDQ. THAT would be a killer device in so many ways..and FrankenGarnet could even conceivably handle it! Offer it with a choice of OSes at the same price points and they'd have a winner as Adama stated above.

I personally won't upgrade to a Treo until they offer it with 320*480--the extra pixels & screen real estate are just too critical to getting real work done.

I also agree on the Palm OS licensing charges getting expensive if Access gets a foothold into the smartphone market. Palm would be wise to go ahead and make a secondary offer to secure Garnet and Cobalt lock, stock, and barrel for their own purposes. Then they could conceivably cobble all of that into their own version of the OS for low-end devices and in case the Access licensing situation gets ugly. To use jarjar's analogy again, it'd be akin to the guy in debt selling his expensive house but buying a little mobile home to keep around just in case...

RE: Perhaps I just don't get it...
sr4 @ 9/20/2005 3:54:22 PM # Q

I've played with the WM5 emulator (details of how to get this here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?t=26992&highlight=wm5+emulator ) and its quite happy to run in 320x320, or nearly any other resolution. The native apps (except for WMP 10) appear to be resolution independent.

http://surur.sytes.net/wm320.png
http://surur.sytes.net/wm480.png

Surur

RE: Perhaps I just don't get it...
LiveFaith @ 9/20/2005 4:56:44 PM # Q
Surer,

Are we sure the "670" is 240x240? I know that's been said, but? I was under the "weak" impression that WM did not handle 320x320? Or was that the 2003 or whatever they name the stuff?

It makes no sense to cripple it like HP did IMO. HP will pay dearly for that rez in my estimation. WM5 at 320x320 could be the ticket for Palm. Make the devices identical in the hardware department and flash the OS. Or make it simple to drop in faster / slower chips and more/less flash and swap OSes. Could such a thing work to succeed?

Pat Horne; www.churchoflivingfaith.com

RE: Perhaps I just don't get it...
sr4 @ 9/20/2005 5:27:43 PM # Q
I'm sure its 240x240, simply because thats one of the supported resolutions of WM 5. 320x320 is not. The next resolution up is 480x480. It least this means that the Treo 670 will run in the same resolution as the HP 6515 and HP 6715, which means developers have more than one reason to fix apps which do not handle the lower resolution gracefully.

Surur

RE: Perhaps I just don't get it...
spit @ 9/20/2005 10:25:06 PM # Q
Why would Access pay $ 327 million for Palm os if they had known this?


I may be paranoind but I have to wonder if it's all being orchastrated under the table by someone to ensure that Palm os quietly dies off without the possibility of becoming another Linux distro with GPL licensing?

RE: Perhaps I just don't get it...
Dr Opinion @ 9/20/2005 11:07:57 PM # Q
> "As many have commented on this site, it was likely just a carefull plotted plan all along to line the pockets of certain individuals at the expense of the company/companies' long-term health, market share, and the investors' $."

That's the stupidest idea I've ever heard. (And I hear a lot of them from the m$ shills on this site...)

The Palm OS had to be spun off becuase licencees knew the the Palm hardware business was benefiting from being "in-house" with the OS business. Probably Sony demanded it.

That's it. Nothing to see here. Go home. :)

------
"People who like M$ products tend to be insecure crowd-following newbies lacking in experience and imagination."

RE: Perhaps I just don't get it...
AdamaDBrown @ 9/20/2005 11:15:33 PM # Q
stupidest idea I've ever heard.

This from the person who's so paranoid, he insists that any and all negative things ever said about Palm or PalmSource, by anyone, is the work of paid Micrsoft astroturfers.

RE: Perhaps I just don't get it...
hkklife @ 9/21/2005 9:33:09 AM # Q
Anyone who has followed the gaming market for the past several years (since '00/'01) has heard the rumblings that Sony has had the PSP in the works ever since the launch of the PS2. Given Sony's constantly feuding internal divisions, their past experience in the portable electronics market, and the success of the PS2 vs. their so-so Clie/VAIO lines, it seemed certain (to me at least) that the Clies were just a stopgap solution to try and flood the market in the short term while gaining VALUABLE experience for the non-gaming side of the PSP's functionality.

Upon the release of the NR70V and the subsequent release of the Clie gamepad (not a half-bad realization for what it was, actually) I said that the next logical step was a portable Playstation variant of some kind and that the Clie line probably couldn't coexist alongside it.

When the PS2 launched in '00 and played DVDs out of the box it likely hurt Sony's CE DVD player sales as well. However, a household can make use of two DVD players. Two media/game-playing/web surfing "personal entertainment" devices don't coexist too well under the average American roof. That, coupled, with no viable long-term OS suitable for Sony's purposes, was the nail in the Clie's coffin probably as far back as '02 or '03 or so.

Sony's royalty payments, while nice, couldn't have been THAT much of an influence on the spin-off. Besides, once Sony got their first two underwhelming Clies out of the way, they quickly leapfrogged Palm's OS4 units and never looked back. I wouldn't call Palm's lackluster handelds of that era--monochrome m100s, the dim m505, T|T and its poor quality, low volume audio , monophonic T|C headphone jack etc--much competition to Sony's finest. Since Sony bailed, Palm's efforts haven't amounted to much and they've slid back into their old incremental upgrade rut.

About the only thing Palm Inc. could have been said to was "benefit" from was by supporting the native audio API and Bluetooth with the T|T series.

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Other bidders?

gfunkmagic @ 9/20/2005 4:01:05 PM # Q
>>>>>major U.S. and European handset makers jumped into the bidding for PalmSource...

Hmmm...I wonder who the other bidders were? Could it have been Motorola, Nokia, or even Sony?!!! It actually is pretty lucky for Palm that PalmSource didn't fall into the hands of another handset competitor. That would have put Palm into exactly the opposite position other lisencees were prior to the Palm+Palmsource split. Anyway, at least we know why Access had to pay such a premium for PalmSource...

--------------------
Gaurav

RE: Other bidders?
palmato @ 9/20/2005 5:01:41 PM # Q
Now it's clear why PalmOne bought the Palm name back, as opposed to the whole stuff. And Access didn't bother too much. ;-)

Major European and US makers.... Nokia and Motorola ?
And the one winning is a Japanese company. Interesting ... maybe there's a third party behind all of this, a Japanese company who aleady uses Netfront technology and may be more interested in having the OS keepers close at hand. ;-) ;-) ;-)


--------------------------
Waiting for a TT successor

RE: Other bidders?
LiveFaith @ 9/20/2005 5:02:03 PM # Q
Only major Us is Moto, right?

Let's see Palm offered $2,000, Moto offered $4,250 and Nokia $11,500! Looks like Access took a bath @ $330M!
:-)

Pat Horne; www.churchoflivingfaith.com

RE: Other bidders?
Sam H @ 9/20/2005 5:17:18 PM # Q
Major European and US makers.... Nokia and Motorola ?

Could also have been Sony Ericsson.

Moto are going for a Linux-based phone OS having broken with Symbian and Nokia's 770 Internet Tablet is Linux-based. Either could have been a good match with Palm OS-for-Linux. Interesting...

RE: Other bidders?
SeldomVisitor @ 9/20/2005 8:18:27 PM # Q
Please note that simply because Me-Too Media Outlet X says "PALM and a multitude of others bid on PSRC" doesn't make it so.

Be Careful Out There!

RE: Other bidders?
Sam H @ 9/22/2005 3:39:08 AM # Q
Please note that simply because Me-Too Media Outlet X says "PALM and a multitude of others bid on PSRC" doesn't make it so.

That's right, Deny Everything!

RE: Other bidders?
Timothy Rapson @ 9/22/2005 6:10:55 PM # Q
I must have missed this offering on Ebay. Or maybe I was too busy following the $10 million sale of Gordon's helmet. I'm sorry guys, but I still can't understand or fully believe Access is paying #327 million for PalmSource, much less believe that there was a bidding war for it. It must be worth that much, because Access put that much up for it, but I still don't understand how Access did its math to get that figure.

Reply to this comment

I feel so sorry for Palm Inc. :(

VampireLestat @ 9/20/2005 5:34:06 PM # Q
I was hoping Palm would buy PalmSource and bring everything back into "the family", but it looks like that won't be happening any time soon. sigh

At least we know that many major companies consider Palm OS to be of great value. I also appreciate that Palm had the wisdom to try and buy PalmSource.

As a consumer, I can see the value of Palm OS by the way the PIM features keep me organized. That alone is enough to justify the purchase of a device. Access Inc and others can see that also despite fluctuating device sales.

I think Palm OS has a good future.

RE: I feel so sorry for Palm Inc. :(
adamsmark @ 9/20/2005 5:59:41 PM # Q
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the Palm OS drive its design and functionality? Without the OS, Palm is just another PDA. Seperating the two would be like Apple selling off its operating system. With the system, Apple can compete with the best; without the system and it's nothing.

Reply to this comment

Story still not on 1src.com

sr4 @ 9/20/2005 6:08:47 PM # Q

Guess what. The story still has not reached 1src.com. Not positive enough for them? I'm sure with a few days of pondering Jeff K. will find a good spin to put on it e.g.

PalmSource is irrelevant to POS, Palm should be glad they lost the bidding.
or
Access will do better with POS in any case, just give them 5-10 years.
or
Now that Palm is selling WM devices, they are perfectly set to make Vista mini-tablet. POS would just have held them back.

I'll look forward to hearing my ideas repeated in Jeff's next podcast.

Surur

RE: Story still not on 1src.com
VampireLestat @ 9/20/2005 8:23:14 PM # Q
LOL

I love Jeff and his podcasts. I find him to be a bright guy with a "wide spectrum" of ideas... ;)

Reply to this comment

Palm being sued for buggy Treo's

sr4 @ 9/20/2005 6:40:58 PM # Q
At all pertinent times, Palm represented to the public, including Class members, that the Treo 600 and 650 were quick, dependable and reliable hand-held organizers and mobile telephones; that they were free from defects; and that they were of merchantable quality and workmanship. In fact, these phones suffered from extremely poor sound quality and buzzing,
choppiness, speakerphone problems, poor and broken screens, phone crashes, software crashes and electrical surges. When Palm replaced phones in response to these problems they replicated the problems by providing consumers refurbished phones subject to identical issues.
3. Palm also concealed material facts regarding the Treo 600 and 650, including that Treos fail at unacceptably high rates, are inherently defective and are not reliable storage devices or
mobile phones, are not of merchantable quality, do not conform to the specifications with which Palm has claimed they comply, and are not capable of being properly or reliably repaired by Palm. In fact, in an effort to combat the inherently defective nature of the Treo 600 and 650, it has been necessary for some consumers to go to extreme measures such as self-repair of the phone. The necessity of such remedial measures, however, is not disclosed by Palm to purchasers of the Treo 600 and 650, and these remedial measures are not practicable for, effective for, or available to all Treo users who may wish to attempt to remedy the defective nature of the Treo 600 and 650 and may
void the user’s warranty.
4. Furthermore, Palm has been aware for a substantial period of time that the Treo 600 and 650 were failing at a very high rate. Nevertheless, Palm has not warned its customers of the problem or tried to prevent them from suffering system failures and data losses. Palm has refused, and continues to refuse, to warn consumers about the defects inherent in the Treo 600 and 650 or to effectively remedy the problems and defects inherent in the Treo 600 and 650. Unwilling to admit fault, Palm has sat silently while consumers purchased these defective products and continues to sit silently today as a high percentage of the Treo 600 and 650’s fail to perform despite Palm’s knowledge of the malfunctions. To this day, Palm has not warned customers about the risks inherent in purchasing and relying upon a Treo as a mobile telephone and organizer.

http://www.techfirm.com/treocomplaint.pdf

Maybe they could not afford PalmSource due to having to keep money in reserve to settle this class action suite. I hope it goes to trial. Maybe we will then head what the REAL return rate of Treo's and LifeDrive's are.

Surur

RE: Palm being sued for buggy Treo's
svrontis @ 9/21/2005 3:31:29 AM # Q
Thanks, Surur. I have only read the first 3 pages of the Complaint. Based on what I have seen, I expect Palm's attorneys to put on a motion to have it struck out on technical grounds. If they succeed, an amended Complaint may be filed. This may develop into procedural trench warfare - if so, Palm will likely win due to their greater resources to pursue the fight.

By way of background, class actions are a common way by which so-called 'ambulance chasing' plaintiff's lawyers* seek to extract easy money by trying to embarrass a defendant into a quick settlement. The usual tactic in response (by many in Corporate America) is to intentionally make the process more costly and to draw it out, so as to disuade the plaintiffs - by avoiding an easy settlement, it is often cheaper to do this that accept a quick settlement.

(This is not a criticism - some of my golf buddies are plaintiff litigators - this is just how they are often described in the press.)

By the way, do you have any inside dirt on what the latest M$ reorganisation will mean for the WinMob division? Looks like they are being shuffled into the same division with Xbox and other loss-makers - segregating the basket cases like this is a classic management ploy - as a lead-up to more drastic action latter on.

Of course this is being done in response to Wall Street views on the current malais at M$. See for example the recent article in Forbes magazine, where it was said:

'What has gone wrong? Microsoft, with $40 billion in sales and 60,000 employees, has grown musclebound and bureaucratic. Some current and former employees describe a stultifying world of 14-hour strategy sessions, endless business reviews and a preoccupation with PowerPoint slides; of laborious job evaluations, hundreds of e-mails a day and infighting among divisions so fierce that it hobbles design and delays product releases. In short, they describe precisely the behavior that humbled another tech giant: IBM (nyse: IBM - news - people ) in the late 1980s. Tellingly, IBM reached a point of crisis just over three decades after it started selling computers to commercial users.'

In this sort of cut-throat environment, how long to do you expect the WinMob heroes (who have NEVER made a profit) to survive?

RE: Palm being sued for buggy Treo's
sr4 @ 9/21/2005 4:41:02 AM # Q
The hope that MS will drop WM, like Sony dropped POS, has always been the last refuge of POS fans who prefer illusion to dispair.

MS will not be dropping WM anytime over the next 10 years at least,since they will always need a low resource OS for resource constrained devices. If they do they will be ceding an important strategic area to their competitors, Symbian and Linux.

As you said, MS has entered middle age, and they are very actively looking for new growth areas to satisfy their share holders. This currently means gaming and cellphones. You may argue convincingly that unconnected PDA's will be abandoned, but its pure fantasy to think MS will stop providing an OS for smartphones.

BTW, WM has always been in the same devision as X-box.

Surur

RE: Palm being sued for buggy Treo's
svrontis @ 9/21/2005 9:28:51 AM # Q
Your devotion to the WinMob cause is touching (if more than a little naive).

RE: Palm being sued for buggy Treo's
sr4 @ 9/21/2005 9:55:23 AM # Q
Funny, I always thought the same about you and POS.

Surur

RE: Palm being sued for buggy Treo's
svrontis @ 9/21/2005 10:19:20 AM # Q
Well, you can have the last word if you must, but I wonder if Mr Ballmer (or, more importantly, his beancounters) is as devoted to WinMob as you.

BTW, msmobiles.com says that WinMob was not previously in the same division as the Xbox crew -

http://msmobiles.com/news.php/4303.html

Since you are always right, Surur, I suppose this means that the msmobiles.com writer got it wrong.

Note also that the head of the former WinMob division is being demoted - he is now the deputy head of the combined division.

RE: Palm being sued for buggy Treo's
sr4 @ 9/21/2005 11:41:41 AM # Q

svrontis, I will let you score 1/2 a point. Windows Mobile and x-box are actually rejoining each other. MS goes through a re-org every year or two. When X-box just started it was part of the Consumer software, services and devices group, which included:
Xbox
MSN Internet Access
MSN Network Services
PC and Online Games
Learning and Productivity Software.     
Mobility and Embedded Systems.  

http://www.microsoft.com/msft/ar02/financials/item1.htm

So they have come full circle, but of course you are right. They were'rnt always with x-box. Just in the beginning. When you have been in the business as long as I have you get a bit fuzzy over the details.

1/2 point for svrontis. That makes -199.5, but who's counting.

Surur



RE: Palm being sued for buggy Treo's
Rome @ 9/21/2005 2:30:05 PM # Q
Microsoft needs to break itself up, very much like what AT&T did in the the 1980's. Mr. Softie's best days are behind them.

RE: Palm being sued for buggy Treo's
AdamaDBrown @ 9/23/2005 4:04:10 AM # Q
Microsoft needs to break itself up, very much like what AT&T did in the the 1980's. Mr. Softie's best days are behind them.

Technically, AT&T didn't break themselves up, they were ordered to break up.

Your point is still very true, though it will never occur to Microsoft. To their minds, bigger=better. They'll never realize that numerous smaller, more nimble companies could do a lot better job in each of their markets than a single megalith. So, they'll continue to blindly shuffle around, pushing products like the airpad and tablet PC--which most people could tell them will end up as niche products--and shocking everybody when they stumble across something that works. Who cares. MS these days is like a senile Bond villian, who can't remember where they left their shoes, let alone how to operate the death ray. They're increasingly irrelevant, and being supplanted by companies that can do it better, like Google.

RE: Palm being sued for buggy Treo's
svrontis @ 9/23/2005 6:55:24 AM # Q
> Technically, AT&T didn't break themselves up, they were ordered to break up.

Absolutely right.

AT&T was broken up under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act as a penalty for monopolistic practices. (The case is required reading at any reputable Law School.)

The mighty M$ narrowly escaped this same fate a few years ago (through a Houdini-like settlement). The talk among Anti-Trust lawyers is that it's doubtful anybody will go through the pain of suing them again in the foreseeable future.

However, if the latest M$ restructure doesn't satisfy Wall Street, the analysts will likely press for a self-imposed break-up or, at least, a shedding of marginal businesses.

RE: Palm being sued for buggy Treo's
svrontis @ 9/23/2005 7:10:38 AM # Q
SeldomVisitor, thanks for the link - please use tinyurl.com next time, otherwise Ryan may delete your post.

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