Palm Gets $100 Million More for a Turn-Around
While everyone we know is experiencing cut backs to the Nth dimension, it’s payday for smartphone maker Palm.
California-based private equity firm, Elevation Partners, which previously invested a booming $325 million into Palm, is about to invest another thumping $100 million. Elevation Partners is the company that was founded by former Apple CFO Fred Anderson, Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello, U2’s Bono, and others. In gaming, the company joined BioWare and Pandemic, later brokering a deal for EA to acquire the developers.
Why would anyone want to further invest in a company that recently reported a net loss of $506.2 million dollars just in its fiscal second quarter? Its sales have sharply been reduced by 13 percent — if that’s not the Hindenburg of phones sales, perhaps its the Titanic.
I guess this is what Elevation is optimistic with: Palm has a considerable user base of seven to eight million who still use the Treo, and a lot of application developers who find it still relevant to continue supporting this mother load of a platform.
You would think that these people are operating in some Bizarro world because when the news was announced, Palm’s stock shot up like Rozzi’s fireworks. Who knew we are in a global meltdown?
I don’t know any of my friends that use a Palm device. That’s not to say this is a litmus test of whether a product is good or not..Do any of you own a Treo?
For consumers, Apple has the lock down with AT&T and T-Mobile has a limited exclusive with Google’s Android. A lot of people are expecting an announcement of a Zune phone from Microsoft. In the business world, RIM’s BlackBerry is king and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile (used by Palm and many others) has a strong following. With all of this to consider, can Palm pull it off?
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