Nokia reportedly eyeing Palm
Palm stock surged 8 percent on reports that Nokia could acquire the struggling smartphone maker, but does Nokia really need yet another mobile platform?
Palm is in the midst of a historic turnaround with Jon Rubinstein, creator of the iPod, at the helm. Ruby guided the development of Palm’s new WebOS platform and the launches of both the Pre and Pixi.
However, Palm doesn’t have the carrier relationships in place to get its phones into wide distribution. While the Pre and Pixi have gotten relatively good reviews, the models are only available to Sprint customers in the U.S. so far.
This inherently limits the number of units Palm can sell of any device that the company can dream up. That would make the rumored tie-up between Palm and the number one handset maker Nokia a dream come true.
Nokia’s also struggling to compete against the iPhone and Android in the smartphone space. However the company is well down the road of launching its own smartphone platform.
For a long time, Nokia has been focused on the Symbian platform, which it acquired last year. Then the company decided that it needed a more robust platform for smartphone applications.
Enter Maemo. Nokia has already built its own Linux-based smartphone platform and begun shipping the N900 running on the Maemo 5 platform.
The only problem is that Maemo hasn’t gotten nearly as much attention as WebOS from the market. It’s quite possible that Nokia is looking at buying its way into the high-end smartphone market, just not terribly likely.
On the other hand, Nokia has been snapping up smaller companies left and right such as Navteq, Dopplr, Trolltech and Symbian. Therefore an acquisition of Palm to ensure the company’s long-term relevance in the market isn’t entirely out of the question.
Do you think Nokia should go with Linux-based Maemo or the polished look of Palm’s WebOS?
Related Posts:
