Palm, Inc.

Palm, Inc., was an American company that specialized in manufacturingpersonal digital assistants(PDAs) and developing software. Palm designed thePalmPilot,the first PDA successfully marketed worldwide, and was known for theTreo 600, one of the earlier successfulsmartphones. Palm developed thePalm OSsoftware for PDAs and smartphones released under its line ofPalm-branded devices and also licensed to other PDA manufacturers.
The company was also responsible for the first versions ofwebOS, the first multitasking operating system for smartphones,andenyo.js, a framework forHTML5apps. In July 2010, Palm was purchased byHewlett-Packard(HP), and in 2011 announced a new range of webOS products. However, after poor sales, HP CEOLéo Apothekerannounced in August 2011 that it would end production and support of Palm and webOS devices, marking the end of the Palm brand after 19 years. In October 2014, HP sold the Palm trademark to ashelf corporationtied to the Chinese electronics firmTCL Corporation.
Palm, headquartered inSunnyvale, California, was responsible for numerous products including thePreandPixias well as theTreoandCentrosmartphones. Previous product lines include the Pilot 1000, Palm Pilot Pro, Palm III,Palm V,Palm VII,ZireandTungsten. While their older devices runPalm OSGarnet, four editions of the Treo runWindows Mobile.
Palm Computing, Inc., was founded in 1992 byJeff Hawkins, who later hiredDonna DubinskyandEd Colligan, all of whom guided Palm to the invention ofPalm Pilot. The company was started to write software for theZoomer, a consumerPDAmanufactured byCasioforTandy.The Zoomer devices were also distributed by Casio andGRiD, while Palm provided thePIMsoftware.ThePEN/GEOSoperating system was provided byGeoworks.
The Zoomer failed commercially, but Palm continued generating revenue by selling synchronization software forHPdevices, and theGraffitihandwriting recognitionsoftware for theApple NewtonMessagePad.
The company was acquired byU.S. Robotics Corp.in 1995. In June 1997, U.S. Robotics was acquired by3Comand Palm became a 3Com subsidiary. In June 1998, the founders became unhappy with the direction in which 3Com was taking the company, and left to foundHandspring.
3Com made the Palm subsidiary an independent,publicly traded companyon 1 March 2000, and it traded on theNASDAQunder theticker symbolPALM. Palm Inc had itsIPOduring thedot-com bubbleand in its first day of trading thesharesof the new company hit an all-time high ofUS$95.06.But competition and the end of the tech bubble caused Palm's shares to lose 90% of their value in just over a year. By June 2001 the company's shares were trading at US$6.50, making it the worst performing PDA manufacturer on the NASDAQ index at the time.
In January 2002, Palm set up a wholly owned subsidiary to develop and license Palm OS,which was namedPalmSourcein February.PalmSource was then spun off from Palm as an independent company.In October 2003, the hardware division of the company merged with Handspring, was renamed topalmOne, Inc.and traded under the ticker symbol PLMO. The Palm trademark was held by a jointly owned holding company.
In May 2005, palmOne purchased PalmSource's share in the 'Palm' trademark for US$30 million.In July 2005, palmOne launched its new name and brand, reverting to Palm, Inc. and trading under the ticker symbol PALM once again.
In late 2005,ACCESS, which specializes in mobile and embedded web browser technologies, acquired PalmSource for US$324 million.
On 4 January 2006, Palm released the PalmTreo 700w, the firstWindows Mobile-powered Treo, in a partnership withVerizon WirelessandMicrosoft.
In December 2006, Palm, Inc. paid US$44 million to ACCESS for an irrevocable license to use and modify the source code for Palm OS Garnet as well as ship Palm OS Garnet in any Palm product without paying royalties; with this arrangement, the Palm company could once again develop both its hardware and software.
In June 2007, Palm formed a strategic relationship with the private-equity firmElevation Partners, who purchased a 25% equity stake of the company for US$325 million– an investment that came after months of rumours about a possible Palm sale. Palm CEO Ed Colligan acknowledged that "We were approached by larger parties over the last six months," and "the reality is that we thought this was the best outcome for our business and our investors."
On 18 December 2008, Palm CEO Ed Colligan announced that the company would no longer develop any new handheld PDAs.Palm announced thewebOSoperating system andPalm Presmartphone at theConsumer Electronics Showon 8 January 2009, and released on 6 June 2009 withSprint.The design team was led byMatias Duarte, Mike Bell, Peter Skillman andMichael Abbott.
In early 2009, the hype over WebOS sent Palm's stock from US$3 to a high of about US$18.  While reviews of the Palm Pre were positive, launching with only one U.S. carrier (Sprint, which was also a distant third in the market) proved to be a crucial mistake that limited sales, even though it became Sprint's phone. The Pre was often described as Palm'sswan songas it was too late to keep the company – with only $250 million in cash and short- term investments at the beginning of 2009 – independent for long. By 2010 the share price of Palm dropped to below US$4.
On 28 April 2010, Hewlett-Packard announced it would purchase Palm at $5.70 a share for $1.2 billion in an all-cash deal.The acquisition was completed on 1 July 2010.
The Palm global business unit was to be responsible for webOS software development and webOS-based hardware products, from a robust smartphone roadmap to future slate PCs and netbooks.
In February 2011, HP unveiled a new line of WebOS products, including thePre 3,Veer, andTouchPad; however, these products were branded under HP's name and not with the Palm name.In July 2011, as part of a reorganization, WebOS headJon Rubinsteinwas demoted from senior vice president to a "product innovation role", and replaced by Stephen DeWitt, head of HP's North American consumer PC unit. At the same time, Palm was renamed the "webOS global business unit", effectively ending the use of the Palm brand.
The launch of the TouchPad was met with extremely poor sales;on 18 August 2011, HP announced that it would immediately end the production and support of all Palm and WebOS devices, and would be "exploring options to optimize the value of webOS software going forward", including a potential sale of the division to another company. HP also cancelled the U.S. release for the Pre 3 and Veer, and infamously, held afire saleon remaining TouchPad stock, lowering prices for the tablet to as low as US$99 (which, however, led to a major spike in demand for the device).The decision, made by HP's CEO at the timeLéo Apotheker, along with its $11.7 billion acquisition ofAutonomy, and threats to spin off HP's consumer business, led to a major decline in HP's market performance, with its shares falling in value by 45.4%.
Following the resignation of Apotheker and his replacement byMeg Whitman,it was announced in December 2011 that an open source version of much of WebOS would be created. Shortly afterward, Jon Rubinstein, along with a number of other senior Palm staff members, began to leave HP.On 15 August 2012, it was revealed that HP had re-organized the remaining WebOS team as a unit known as "Gram", made up of the remaining components of Palm.In February 2013, HP announced that it had sold the WebOS team, along with a license to the WebOS source code, documentation, and underlying patents, toLG Electronics. LG planned to primarily use the WebOS platform for its smart TV products, rather than on mobile devices, but did not rule out the possibility.
On 30 December 2014, it was reported that in October 2014, HP had sold the Palm trademark and related intellectual properties to Wide Progress Global Limited, ashelf companycontrolled by Nicolas Zibell — a regional president ofTCL Corporation, which markets Android smartphones under theAlcatelbrand. At the same time, it was discovered that the former Palm.com now redirected to MyNewPalm.com; the site displayed a "coming soon" page with the previous orange Palm logo, and the slogan "Smart move", which is also the slogan used by Alcatel OneTouch.
TCL publicly confirmed its acquisition of the Palm brand on 6 January 2015, stating that it planned to "re-create" the company with a new team based inSilicon Valley, and incorporate crowdsourcing into its product development.
On 15 October 2018, a newPalm companion devicewas unveiled, which is manufactured by a new Palm-branded startup company from California that is financially backed by TCL and basketball playerStephen Curry. It is an "ultra-mobile", Android-based device designed to serve as a smaller, simplified companion to a larger smartphone. The new device was announced as being exclusive toVerizon Wireless, only available as an add-on to an existing or new device plan.