More Details on Spinning Off Palm's OS Subsidiary
In a recent SEC filing, Palm Inc. has released more details its plans to spin off the Palm Solutions Group, its OS and software division, into a subsidiary.
Palm plans to have this process completed no later than the end of this year. Also, it might be totally separated from Palm Inc. This process would include "a legal separation, third party investments by strategic partners, sub-IPO and spin-off".
This move is intended to deal with the problem of Palm Inc. both cooperating with its licensees and competing against them. Palm needs to work closely with the OS licensees, like Sony and Handspring, to improve the Palm OS but it also competes against them in hardware sales. Splitting off the portion of the company that develops the OS could greatly relieve some of the tension.
Incedentally, the SEC filing mentions the code name for the first ARM-based Palm: Hercules 1.0.
This SEC filing takes the form of the job offer that Palm made to David Nagel, who was hired to oversee the spin-off process and to be the CEO, President, and a director of the new company, if one is formed.
Palm must have really wanted to Mr. Nagel to leave his job at AT&T because his compensation package is a sweet deal. In addition to his $620 thousand salary he got a $200 thousand hiring bonus and can participate in a discretionary cash bonus plan giving him up to 70% of his base salary. This will be dependent on "various factors, including company and individual performance." It should be noted that no Palm executive has received any bonuses so far this year due to the company's current situation.
He is also eligible to get a great deal of Palm stock. One stock grant is an incentive to get the next generation of handhelds out the door. He gets 50 thousand Palm shares in two years or when the first ARM-based Palm handheld hits the market. The second set appears to be aimed at keeping him at Palm. He gets 50 thousand shares a year for the next two years if he still works there. He will also be able to buy up to 6.5% of the shares of the new company.
As AT&T's chief technology officer, Mr. Nagel led its technology strategy and R&D planning. As president of AT&T Labs, he was responsible for managing R&D for the company's next-generation Internet Protocol, data and managed services, and AT&T Business Services IT systems. Mr. Nagel also served as the chief technology officer for Concert, the global joint venture between AT&T and British Telecom.
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RE: The whole spinoff thing doesn't solve anything
Nope - this is good news for everyone except the people left on the hardware side. Given the devices coming out of Palm OS licencees, I'd be feeling more than a little nervous over there.
Could this be the end of Palm?
I don't see how this split is going to benefit anyone? In fact, it could do much more harm than good!
No
RE: Could this be the end of Palm?
RE: Palm OS doing better than ever?
Too little, too late i fear. what a differnce a couple of years make
RE: Could this be the end of Palm?
RE: Palm OS doing better than ever?
You've been listening to the trolls. At least part of the reason Motorola and Nokia cancelled their projects is too much competition. With Kyocera, Samsung, and now HandSpring making Palm smartphones, the market is getting congested.
No matter what some people say, the Palm OS dominates the handheld space the way Windows dominates the desktop space. Here's something from last week:
The unit market share for Palm OS-based devices remained
stable with 82.5%. Its share of revenue was 78.5% in August.
Pocket PCs made up just 13% of the number of units sold,
significantly less than the total for just Handspring, the number
two Palm OS licensee.
RE: Could this be the end of Palm?
RE: Could this be the end of Palm?
Hercules
---
News Editor
RE: Hercules
Mixed feelings
A PalmOS company will need to expand into business software solutions to supplement it's income. They could start with a "Palm Office Suite" and slowly kill off the other office suites. They need to hire some ex-microsoft employees to get the cut-throat attitude that has served microsoft so well.
David in Pflugerville, TX
RE: Mixed feelings
swami Anonymous thinks this will lead to an exclusively Microsoft Office-compatible palm office platform.
something about cutthroat execs...
(^_^)
too late?
RE: too late?
RE: too late?
PocketPC 2002 uses CE 3 (which is just a kernel and underlying OS - no apps or shell) with an updated shell and apps. The extras make PocketPC 2002.
CE 4 is still in beta and we'll probably see a PocketPC platform built off it in about 18 months.
RE: too late?
RE: too late?
Pretty Obvious
Do not be suprised if you see Palm Hardware running Windows CE very shortly.
The publicized motive is rarely the true motive, has as much to do with hardware as the OS.
RE: Pretty Obvious (CE on Palm hw)
Lessee, can you say SoftPC on a Z80?
trans: not fast enough.
RE: Pretty Obvious
Riiiiiiight. And giant winged monkeys will fly out my butt, too...!
Why buy the BeOS if you're just going to cop out and run CE on a Palm-branded device?? That makes no sense at all...
What now?
BeOS
RE: What now?
RE: Be OS
RE: What now?
I can stay with my Visor or any of those PalmOS4 beasts for 3 years or more, but I can't live w/o new BeOS, this OS is so damn cool!!! And sixth release would be outstanding (if only...).
Palm has got only one chance if they close BeOS forever - to provide me with next-gen handheld that would be better than my desktop (i.e. mobile, always-on wireless internet, Mozilla-class browser with Flash, Java and JS, complete office suite, graphic editor, BlueTooth etc). Otherwise I'll switch to Psion and go to Tibet.
Do your homework on this guy.
into a standalone business - though he never provided a reasonable explanation beyond "Because
I'm the Daddy." Funny how he's changing his tune now that he standing to be financially rewarded
personally.
Read up on this guy - there are a couple of books on Apple history where he is mentioned. He is
the business equivalent to baseballs' "Good glove, no stick." He's never been able to execute on
anything and presided over some pretty expensive failures - in middleware and unified messaging -
while at AT&T.
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The whole spinoff thing doesn't solve anything
It will suck up a year's worth of top management brain power to do the split. (Just like a lot of brain power was used to split Palm off from 3Com and prodcuts were slowed) That brain power should have been applied to product development, not managing lawyers and investment bankers.
Palm needs to focus on the product not corporate shuffle games.