Motorola Droid hurts Palm

[danDroid]

Palm posted a net lost of $22million today and the outlook for the company appears to be just as grim. During the conference call Jon Rubinstein, Palm's chairman and CEO suggested that the Motorola Droid was a major ingredient for Palm's disappointed sales.

We had an arrangement with Sprint that when we launched with Sprint that they would invest in marketing and carry the product and for that they would get an exclusive for a period of time. That really determined when we could do our launch at Verizon. I agree with your premise that if we could have launched at Verizon earlier, prior to Droid, that we would have gotten the attention that the Droid got and since I believe that we have a better product, I think we would have even done better.

Gizmodo reported a rumor that Palm could become an acquistion target for Google. Not necessarily for the current hardware or software but strictly for Palms' patents.

There are a myriad of other reasons too why it makes sense for Google to buy Palm and this looming patent war with Apple simply adds impetus to such a decision. Think about all of the good things that Google would get out of buying Palm. Google gets every tool which it currently lacks but needs to successfully try to compete with Apple in the smartphone and other post-PC businesses over the long haul.

First and foremost, Google gets all of Palm's patents and we know their patent pool is both large and effective. Palm has been at this for nearly twenty years, giving them lots of patents including some older patents which nicely counter any patent claims Apple could make. It could be very likely that the reason we've never seen any direct patent battles yet between Palm and Apple is because Apple's legal folks looked over the Palm portfolio and decided that Apple infringed on as many Palm patents as Palm did on Apple patents so that a patent war with Palm wasn't really a good idea.

{Source: Engadget Gizmodo}

[TekHawk]

I would love to see Google buy Palm or them change platforms to Android

[Cyberdemon]

I've used a palm PDA (m500 model) to the Tungsten E to the Treo 700p and finally ended with the Palm Centro. I don't know how palm could possibly compete with what Motorola has produced with the Droid interface. Droid is far more advance then the palm could ever be in my opinion.

[Darkseider]

I've used a palm PDA (m500 model) to the Tungsten E to the Treo 700p and finally ended with the Palm Centro. I don't know how palm could possibly compete with what Motorola has produced with the Droid interface. Droid is far more advance then the palm could ever be in my opinion.

Apparently you have never used a Palm Pre. WebOS is a VERY slick OS and if you didn't know it was a Palm you would swear it was Android.

[unix.punkx]

webOS is the best Mobile OS hands down, I cant deny that. If Google bought Palm and merged Android with webOS it would be AMAZING

[Darkseider]

...If Google bought Palm and merged Android with webOS it would be AMAZING

One could only hope...

[Sweettooth]

Google aims to conquer all. We'll have to start calling them GoogleSoft when they buy everyone out and create their own substitutes, thus monopolizing the market as well. No laws will be able to stop them though; they'll have a patent on the software that was used to write the laws.

[sarreq]

if palm is going to get bought out, I hope google does it before apple gets the same idea

[Krish]

Wow it would be amazing if Google bought palm lol. The palm pre was a really awesome phone. The WebOS was so smooth and lag free but it lacked support or devs to work on it so i switch to Droid but would be cool if Google bought Palm, then apple, then the world blahhahahah.

[QuickSilver98]

Palm has been TERMINATED. Next Target: Apple iPhone