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Apple, RIM bid on Palm before HP won

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 15 Jul 2010 10:59 User comments (3)

Apple, RIM bid on Palm before HP won The BusinessInsider has reported today that both Apple and RIM bid on Palm before HP eventually purchased it in April for $1.2 billion.
Citing talks with someone close to the discussions, the site says Apple wanted Palm's library of intellectual property and their patents. Palm has 450 patents on file and 400 more applications on file.

Furthermore, Apple seemed willing to leave Palm independent, funding their operations. It is believed that Apple wanted to take a bite of rival RIM's dominance of the smartphones with keyboards market.

On the other end, RIM had the deal locked up but "had to work incredibly hard to blow it," and they did.



Other giants, like Nokia and Google, did not get into the bidding although it appears Google looked into it when it became clear Apple was interested as well.

How it all went down is as follows (some speculation but based in fact from different sources): Apple offered $600 million in cash, and then did not up their bid. Lenovo then bid with a full stock-for-stock transaction, but that would have taken up to a year to complete. RIM first bid $7 per share (HP won with a $5.70 bid) but then lowered their bid to $5.50 after doing their "due diligence."

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3 user comments

115.7.2010 23:53

"Furthermore, Apple seemed willing to leave Palm independent, funding their operations. It is believed that Apple wanted to take a bite of rival RIM's dominance of the smartphones with keyboards market."

There are so many things wrong with that statement. For starters, apple should never be used in the same sentence as independent unless there is a negative, like "Apple does not support independent thought". As for the keyboards thing, if they wanted to take a bite of that market, I doubt it would be very hard to make an iphone4 with a keyboard...maybe they could even fix the antenna while they were at it.

216.7.2010 13:33

Originally posted by KillerBug:
"Furthermore, Apple seemed willing to leave Palm independent, funding their operations. It is believed that Apple wanted to take a bite of rival RIM's dominance of the smartphones with keyboards market."

There are so many things wrong with that statement. For starters, apple should never be used in the same sentence as independent unless there is a negative, like "Apple does not support independent thought". As for the keyboards thing, if they wanted to take a bite of that market, I doubt it would be very hard to make an iphone4 with a keyboard...maybe they could even fix the antenna while they were at it.
Why dont you just start an Anti-Apple movement mate?
youve got half the forum as followers already lol

317.7.2010 10:45

apple would have never let pam live as it did. Homebrew is basically palm, and comepletely not apples way.

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