Over the past week or so, there has been a lot of speculation and rumors about the acquisition of Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ:PALM). Potential buyers included Motorola, Inc. (NYSE:MOT) and Nokia Corp. (NYSE:NOK). Nokia being a potential buyer of Palm didn’t seem right to me simply because of the vested interest that Nokia has in the Symbian (which is the largest smart phone operating system right now).
This Canalys press release shows that Nokia shipped out 55% of all smart phones in 2006, and Palm lagged behind three positions, being only able to secure 5.5% of the market. Now lets not forget that Palm devices operate on both the Palm and Windows Mobile operating systems. Nokia’s smart phones on the other hand run on the Symbian operating system and Nokia additionally has 47.9% ownership in Symbian.
Is it just me, or does it seem as though it would be a conflict of interest for Nokia to acquire Palm? The only logical explanation is that Nokia plans on integrating the Symbian OS into Palm devices in order to help grow Symbian’s market share in the United States, which is lagging right now.
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