Look, if you’re the CEO of an ailing company, you have to spew some bullshit, but Palm’s leader just doesn’t seem to be in touch with reality.
CEO Jon Rubinstein had a grand vision for Palm’s phoenix-like resurrection: introduce some bad-ass software that’s tightly integrated with some hot hardware and then watch the money pile up. I still think webOS is the best 1.0 smartphone operating system I’ve ever seen – it’s elegant and has great interaction metaphors. Unfortunately, a dumb marketing strategy combined with a lack of killer hardware means Palm is on death’s door as an independent company. Or so it would seem to a rational person.
“I believe Palm can survive as an independent company,” Rubinstein told the Financial Times. “We have a plan that gets us to profitability.”
He said the company will consider licensing out webOS, which could bring in a few ducets but could also lead to fragmentation and a poor overall experience. On the positive side, Rubinstein said it would consider takeover bids – which is no surprise because it reportedly put itself up for sale last week.
Who wants Palm? Well, the suitors are dwindling by the day apparently. I hoped HTC would buy Palm to help it battle Apple’s lawsuits and give it a spiffy OS of its own, but that’s not going to happen. It looks like Lenovo is the leading contender now and that could make sense for both parties: Palm gets the resources it needs to push webOS at scale and Lenovo gets an easy way into the U.S. market.
[Via The Financial Times]