Google, Apple and RIM "among Palm bidders"

 

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 16 Jul 2010 at 07:59

Industry giants such as Google, Apple and BlackBerry maker RIM were among the surprise bidders for Palm, according to a new report.

HP landed Palm for $1.2 billion in April, but the company had to outbid some hitherto unknown rivals, according to a report on Business Insider.

Apple was reportedly very interested in Palm's huge portfolio of intellectual property, and is suspected to have launched a relatively low bid of $600 million for Palm.

Apple's interest apparently set alarm bells ringing at Google, which didn't want the valuable IP portfolio falling into the hands of one of its chief rivals in the mobile market. However, Google never got as far as actually issuing a bid.

RIM was at one stage the overwhelming favourite to acquire Palm and "had to work incredibly hard to blow it," according to a source close to the deal. Business Insider claims that RIM was eventually outbid by HP.

Chinese computer maker Lenovo - which was one of the companies widely reported to be interested in Palm before the HP purchase - also made an offer to buy the company, but said that its "proposed transaction would take at least several months longer to close than is customary", forcing Palm to look elsewhere.

Nokia - the world's biggest smartphone maker and one desperately in need of a modern smartphone OS such as Palm's webOS - was never in the running for Palm, the report claims.

HP has plans to introduce webOS across a variety of devices - including smartphones, tablets and printers - later this year.