Due to the fact that Palm's shares jumped almost 7 percent recently, rumor has it that the PDA manufacturer might in fact be preparing for acquisition.

While rumors regarding this have surfaced before, this time it looks like it's a bit more serious than before. The reason behind a possible acquisition would be Palm's need for extra capital and resources from a parent company.

Also, while the Palm Treo has recorded somewhat of a success in the US, in other parts of the world it hasn't been doing so well.

According to Ken Dulaney, an analyst with Gartner: "To compete in the phone space, you generally need to be big," Dulaney said. "Palm is doing well financially, but they aren't able to cycle the devices as fast they need to in this competitive market."

Potential buyers would include major mobile phone manufacturers such as Motorola or Nokia and aside from them it also looks like one or more private equity players might be interested in the company.

Nokia and Motorola are likely to want to acquire Palm since both manufacturers could use the company's technology to integrate it in their own product portfolios. Motorola could even make some serious improvements and grab a leading spot in the smartphone market, while Nokia could use Palm's Treo to gain some more popularity among North American enterprise customers since its Eseries mobile phones don't seem to be very successful on the US business phone market.

On the other hand, Motorola is currently pursuing its own smart phone line including the Q and might not be necessarily interested in the Treo or Palm's own operating system. Rumor also has it that Microsoft could be a potential bidder, as it might be considering joining Apple in producing mobile phones.