Palm Said to Be Seeking a Buyer ↦

Bloomberg reports that Palm, Inc. is putting itself up for sale:

Palm Inc., creator of the Pre smartphone, put itself up for sale and 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 the sale isn’t public. Taiwan’s HTC Corp. and China’s Lenovo Group Ltd. have looked at the company and may make offers, said the people.

Not long ago, I would have thought that Palm would be a good acquisition target for Research in Motion, the maker of the famous BlackBerry mobile devices. The BlackBerry has a large and loyal following but the technology it runs on has not made the move to iPhone-style touch screens with much success, as evidenced by the lackluster Storm and Storm2. Palm is in the opposite position, with only a small user base but with a touch screen based OS (webOS) that has been well-received by critics. Alas, if RIM was looking to buy a new OS through acquisition, it may have already done so.