06-04-2003, 01:03 PM
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Contributing Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 8,228
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Palm To Buy Handspring
http://www.bargainpda.com/default.asp?newsID=1407&showComments=true
"In a shocking announcement this morning, Palm has acquired Handspring. Handspring has been fighting for survival and Palm has been trying to keep a step ahead of Sony. Now they'll fight together, the deal will be finalized this fall. The Palm board also gave the final approval for the PalmSource spin-off."
Actually, the board has approved the purchase of Handspring, it hasn't happened yet. According to this CNNMoney report, the deal won't happen until this fall and will be after PalmSource has been spun off. The spin off was also approved late yesterday.
Shown are Ed Colligan, Handspring president and COO; Todd Bradley, Palm Solutions Group president and CEO; and Jeff Hawkins, Handspring founder, chairman and chief product officer.
This will leave two PalmOS vendors in the consumer/business market, Palm and Sony. Jeff Hawkins, the original founder of Palm and often called the father of the modern day PDA, will become the Chief Technology Officer for the merged company. Hawkins left Palm several years ago to start Handpring. Ed Colligan, Handspring's President and Chief Operating Officer will lead the smartphone division of Palm Solutions. Donna Dubinsky, Handspring's Chief Executive Officer, will join the merged company's board. Both Palm and Handspring have been meandering around for the past few years losing share to both Pocket PC rivals and PalmOS licensee Sony. Perhaps this will allow them to solidify their base. Palm and Handspring often competed with each other aggressively on price, doing little to gain marketshare but doing much to cut margins.
There are more details in the joint Palm/Handspring press release.
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06-04-2003, 01:30 PM
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Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Sep 2006
Posts: 3,060
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The deal calls for Handspring stock owners to get 0.09 Palm shares for every Handspring share owned. I guess I don't understand the "exchange rate" here, because that seems to put a very high price tag on the Palm stock.
If I were a Handspring stock owner, I'd rather have cash anyway.
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06-04-2003, 01:41 PM
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Thinker
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 361
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Talk about things coming full circle. Handspring was started by a couple of Palm execs who left the company because they were sick of the direction it was headed. Now they're right back where they started.
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06-04-2003, 02:04 PM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 62
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Huh?
Is it April 1 already? 8O
In my opinion, very little was gained by Palm stockholders with this deal... HS was out of the (unconnected) PDA business, pushing into a (slowly becoming) crowded smartphone market. Although I have not seen the new Treo 600, that could be something. :|
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06-04-2003, 02:15 PM
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Mystic
Join Date: Dec 2003
Posts: 1,639
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This doesn't look like a way for success for Palm and Handspring.
It seems to me that it is so hard to make money in the handheld business that both Palm and HS needed to be purchased by companies with other products (profitable ones).
HS being bought by Apple could have worked. A Palm deal does not impress me at all.
__________________
Cheers!
David
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06-04-2003, 02:42 PM
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Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 10,981
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by dh
HS being bought by Apple could have worked. A Palm deal does not impress me at all.
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I agree. Apple would have been much better. The more I think about this, the only thing that Handspring has to offer Palm is there work on SmartPhones. Which hasn't done that well. Apple, on the other hand could have got an entry PDA and SmartPhone out of the deal.
I wonder if Palm will drop the Handspring name, and re-brand all the products as Palm?
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06-04-2003, 02:58 PM
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Pontificator
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 1,202
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Re: Palm To Buy Handspring
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Ed Hansberry
Palm and Handspring often competed with each other aggressively on price, doing little to gain marketshare but doing much to cut margins.
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I think this is the REAL reason for the Purchase. Palm simply wanted to eliminate a potential competitor. If they gain a leg up in the SmartPhone market so be it. Palm has always wanted to get into Wireless, but has yet to be able to develop any sort of product that many users want. Handspring does have relationships with Sprint and T-Mobile to deliver cell phones...
Whydidnt
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06-04-2003, 03:06 PM
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Thinker
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 355
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my funny of the day...
prediction...
in 24 months we see the following headline:
"sony buys palm springs".
cheers,
pt
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06-04-2003, 03:29 PM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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What I find interesting is that there's now only two companies making Palm OS PDAs: Palm and Sony. Granted, both are big and doing well, but I wonder if through the sheer number of OEMs the Pocket PC has, ground won't continue to be made?
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06-04-2003, 03:55 PM
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Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 15,171
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Jason Dunn
What I find interesting is that there's now only two companies making Palm OS PDAs: Palm and Sony.
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Not entirely true. PalmSource has the phone licensees (Samsung, Kyocera), there's Garmin, the gaming one, and a bunch of other more specialty licenses. Having said that, yes, I'm not sure that this consolidation will help grow the market either.
--janak
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