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Palm for Sale?
A Bloomberg story about Palm is causing a stir as the week begins. Serena Saitto and Ari Levy have reported that Palm "is seeking bids for the company as early as this week, according to three people familiar with the situation."
The company is working with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Frank Quattrone's Qatalyst Partners to find a buyer, said the people, who declined to be identified because a sale hasn't been announced. Taiwan's HTC Corp. and China's Lenovo Group Ltd. have looked at the company and may make offers, said the people.
PC Magazine's Sascha Segan wrote a story ("Palm For Sale: Rating 10 Potential Buyers) the looked at ten potential suitors.
On the list of good choices are: Nokia and HTC. For "middling" choices, there is Lenovo, Research in Motion (RIM) and Dell. Microsoft is on the bad choices list along with Apple.
Palm, which had a market value of $870.8 million before today, ranked sixth in the North American smartphone market during the three months ended Dec. 31 with a 4.3 percent share, according to Gartner Inc. RIM, maker of the BlackBerry, led with 44 percent, followed by Apple's 24 percent, according to the Stamford, Connecticut-based research company.
So far, PALM is trading above $6.
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