In today’s business news:
Japanese mobile content delivery provider Access said Friday it was acquiring PalmSource, the company spun off from handheld device maker Palm to develop the Palm operating system software, for about $324.3 million, or an 83 percent premium.
The $18.50 per share offer from Access represents $8.41 more than PalmSource’s closing price of $10.09 Thursday.
The announcement drove PalmSource shares sharply higher Friday, up $7.82, or 78 percent, to $17.91 in recent trading…
— “Access Buys PalmSource”, redherring.com
I can’t say I’m surprised. I could reminisce about my brief stint at PalmSource, reflecting on what misguidance I witnessed from the inside, but I’ve sung that song before. The bigger story here is this: Americans don’t want PDAs.
In fact, very few people want PDAs or handheld computers; even in Asian markets where an actual majority of the population loves and buys new tech like there’s no tomorrow, the killer app is not a calendar or address book, it’s a telephone. If your new phone happens to have a calendar, address book, digital camera, wireless net access, mp3 player, etc. built in, so much the better. But if you can’t use it to talk to your friends– no sale.
The Treo is a step in the right direction, but it’s still got it backwards– we don’t want a computer that happens to also be a phone, we want a phone that also happens to be a computer and can do lots of cool stuff. All that cool stuff is secondary to the primary purpose– communication.
Remember those cheesy long distance commercials? “Reach out and touch someone”, “I won’t drift away”, and so on. The Bell monopoly was ugly, but they knew their business.
UPDATE 9/12: Apparently, so does eBay, who just bought Skype for $2.6 billion.
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