Bloomberg opens up this week’s tech news with a shocking revelation – Palm is putting itself up for sale. Yes, you read it right, it seems that after putting out two new smartphones,  Palm all of a sudden wanted to bail out of the smartphone battle as it’s now opening itself for possible buyers.

According to the report  Palm is seeking bids as early as this week as it works with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Frank Quattrone’s Qatalys Partners in finding a buyer.

And guess which company are keen on acquiring Palm – HTC, Lenovo Group, and even Dell. Unfortunately none of these companies have given any comment whether any of them are indeed buying Palm.

But whoever gets to acquire Palm at the right price, that company would have to face tough times ahead as Palm’s WebOS platform is currently having a hard time competing against the likes of Apple, RIM and Google in the smartphone battlefield.

Interestingly, one of Palm’s partner company, Elevation Partners LP which owns 30% of Palm:

“a sale may end the volatility of an investment in a stock that surged more than 10-fold since December 2008 before erasing most of the gain,” the Bloomberg report said.

Palm’s stock took a deep plunge of more than 60% this year, thanks to the not-so-good performance of its two latest smartphones – Palm Pre and Palm Pixi Plus smartphones.

So, what do you think? Who shall acquire Palm and makes full use of its technology ? Is it Dell, Lenovo, HTC or perhaps even Google?

Originally posted on April 12, 2010 @ 10:19 am