Let’s take a trip on the way-back machine and visit the first cool – gotta-have-it tech toy, the Palm Pilot. I had several versions of the Palm Pilot, The Palm V was the best version, but the PalmOne-m515 had a color screen. The oft traded PDA builder moved from Palm to modem-maker US Robotics. Which was later purchased by 3Com, and then Handspring. Next, it was PalmOne/Source and finally purchased in 2010 for $1.2 billion by HP, where many tech firms go to die.
Now ChinaTechNews.com reports that the Chinese consumer electronics group TCL recently announced that they will acquire the Palm brand. HP is selling Palm as part of Meg Whitman’s struggles to right the floundering HP (HPQ).
Li Dongsheng, chairman of TCL Group, claims the Palm acquisition is different from their purchase of Alcatel’s mobile division. According to the Chinese firm, Palm has its fans in America and its operating ideas are similar to Apple (AAPL). They believe this type of fandom can give Palm strength. Li said the Palm brand still has value in some of the global markets and people expect its re-emergence to continue to offer innovative products.
According to the article, TCL will launch new Palm products at the end of 2015. TLC plans to position Palm as a high-end smartphone brand. Maybe in China, the Palm name is an innovative mobile terminal brand, which will be closely related to users and fans.
Variety reports from CES that TCL said that it will re-create Palm in Silicon Valley. In the statement TCL claims:
Palm has always carried a lot of affect and emotions … That’s why TCL has set the direction to rebuild the brand involving Palm’s very own community, making it the largest scale crowdsourced project ever seen in the industry.
The firm will back the crowdsourced development of new Palm products with 5,000 engineers and seven research and development centers around the world.
Guo Aiping, CEO of TCL Communication, told ChinaTechNews.com that this acquisition is limited to the Palm brand and it does not include other assets such as employees.
rb-
First, another US company sold to the competition. Just saying.
I agree with ArsTechnica they hypothesize this move could be seen as TCL’s attempt to break into the U.S. smartphone market under a well-known brand. Other Chinese companies such as Lenovo, which now owns Motorola, have a similar strategy of operating in America under a well-known brand.
Related articles
- World, face Palm: PDA brand to RISE FROM THE GRAVE (go.theregister.com)