Palm is scouting for a buyer

PIONEERING PDA FIRM Palm is looking for a buyer, according to Bloomberg.

Palm is using Goldman Sachs and Quattrone's Qatalyst Partners to help it find a potential buyer for the ailing business. Sources said HTC and Lenovo haven't put money on the table yet but might make an offer for the company.

No one has made any official announcements on the sale of Palm but speculation is rife that talks are already underway to take it over. Buyers would get a company that develops its own OS, PDAs and web software, but strong competition from Google and Apple has taken a big chunk of Palm's market share.

However, Palm's stock rose on word on the buyout and analyst quotes suggest there's still some meat on the bones.

"Palm still has quite a good brand in the US market, and some strong technology, so you can do something with it," Frank He, a technology analyst at BOC International Holdings, told Bloomberg.

"The shares have gone down a lot and the company may become attractive to anyone looking for a turnaround play," he added.

Palm has had a disastrous couple of years with its PDAs falling out of favour in the rush to buy netbooks and enhanced tablets. Its hardware sales have been below par and we felt a pang of desperation when Palm pulled Foleo in 2007. It was a kind of netboook prototype that would've done much better a few years later. But it's too late for Palm. A buyout might at least regenerate some interest in revamped PDAs. µ