14 DAY TRIAL // There are some recent rumors that Apple might be interested in buying Palm, after the third largest shareholder wants the company to be sold.
Mark Nelson, another big shareholder in Palm (owner of eight percent in stocks) said that Palm is not well placed to compete in the smartphone business even if Treo was touted as a success.
He also said that the smartphone competition is very strong and fast-moving, with manufacturers that are even willing to sacrifice profits for market share. Due to this policy, Palm lost the no.1 position in the US PDA market to other manufacturers like RIM and Blackberry.
Alongside Apple there are other big names interested in the smartphone manufacturer, RIM, HP and Dell being the most significant ones.
Palm was originally founded when Apple ceased to produce the Newton PDA and scrapped the project at Steve Jobs's orders. Since then Apple had no interest in developing another PDA.
Could this be a change of view at Apple's top? Maybe there is some interest in developing a smartphone that will bring together a phone, PDA, iPod, and the iTunes Music Store.