Palm hires ex-Apple designer for iPhone rival

Rumours have swirled, as they say in these circles, around Palm for about a month and recent reports suggest the company has appointed Morgan Stanley to ponder sale possibilities or some other dramatic form of self reinvention such as a major purchase of its own. Possible Palm buyers: Nokia, Motorola or even Dell, which recently quit the PDA business and appointed an ex-Moto exec. Maybe we'll know more on 22 March when Palm is due to hold an earnings call.

Anyhow, the NYT's John Markoff says that Palm is already onto the iPhone case and has appointed an ex-Apple designer, Paul Mercer. Only a device designer who has been at Apple could be worth naming: think of the iPod's halo effect on Jonathan Ive.

Of course, the iPhone will be competition for Palm's Treo but there's no saying yet whether it will be a Newton MessagePad-style flop or an iPod-class smasheroonie. Cost of manufacturing is bound to be toppy, reliability of such a novel design must be questionable, and Apple has set out its stall to be proprietary. There's also no 3G in the current spec, of course. Still, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and there is no shortage of iPhone copycats being prepared right now.

Incidentally, whose software was used to design the iPhone? Very likely Autodesk's given that company's aw-shucks, hinting, nodding, winking reply by the company when asked a direct question at a recent London conference. µ