Palm Moves Closer to Handspring Acquisition

Posted By: Ryan Friday, August 8, 2003 10:48:19 AM

Palm, Inc. and Handspring today announced that the waiting period required by the Hart-Scott-Rodino Anti-Trust Improvements Act for Palm's proposed acquisition of Handspring has expired. The acquisition is expected to close in the fall, subject to certain conditions, including approval from both companies' stockholders.

"Passing the HSR waiting period moves us another step toward delivering what we believe is the broadest portfolio of mobile computing and communications solutions from the most-experienced leadership team in the industry," said Todd Bradley, Palm Solutions' president and chief executive officer. Bradley will lead the company that will result from Palm's acquisition of Handspring.

The Boards of Palm Inc and Handspring announced in June that they each have unanimously approved a definitive agreement for Palm to acquire Handspring to form a new, stronger market leader in mobile computing and communications.

Immediately following the completion of the PalmSource spin-off, Handspring will be merged with Palm, and the merged company will be renamed later in the year. The transaction, encompassing the spin-off of PalmSource and the merger of Handspring with the remaining Palm Solutions Group of Palm, is expected to close in the fall.

The merged company will be led by Bradley, who will continue as president and chief executive officer, and will be structured around two business units: handheld computing solutions, led by Ken Wirt, currently senior vice president, sales and marketing, for Palm Solutions; and smartphone solutions, to be led by Ed Colligan, current president and chief operating officer for Handspring. Jeff Hawkins, Handspring chairman and chief product officer, will become chief technology officer for the merged company.

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What will they call It?

LiveFaith @ 8/8/2003 11:28:10 AM #

What will the new name be ... Palmsprings?

Pat Horne; www.churchoflivingfaith.com

RE: What will they call It?

kevdo @ 8/8/2003 11:56:16 AM #

I sure how that what they mean is that they'll rename the "Palm Solutions Group" part of the company, rather than Palm Inc. itself. That'd be a horrible idea given the brand recognition of Palm.

-Kevin Crossman

RE: What will they call It?

TTrules @ 8/8/2003 3:26:10 PM #

This acquisition is going to give Palm a virtual monopoly on smartphones.

RE: What will they call It?

helf @ 8/8/2003 3:45:40 PM #

No they wont.. palm only has teh treo and t|w.. theres still the kyocera,samsung and all those otehr palm licenees that make phones..not even close to a monopoly..

RE: What will they call It?

HandyMan @ 8/8/2003 3:58:31 PM #

I think to be fair to all the PalmOS devices makers they would have to change the name of the company to something without "Palm" in it to reduce confusion. And/Or let every PalmOS licensee use "Palm" as part of the branding.

In some ways Palm (hardware company) has already begun changing their branding by adding the Zire and Tungsten brand names. So now they'll just add Handspring Treo to the collection. So Zire(tm) for consumer (lower end devices), Tungsten(tm) for business and professionals, and Treo for cell phones.

But what do they call the new company? On one hand you do want to keep the brand values of Palm(tm) and Handspring(tm). But on the other hand they should have an unfair advantage of the "Palm" brand and all the confusion between Palm Source and the hardware company Palm Inc.

The software company should definitely have the "Palm" name, so the hardware company should change to something else to reduce confusion. They could just use the Handspring name and be done with it, but somehow I doubt that's going to happen.

For a good twist, if they just buy the Pilot pen company, they can start calling the company Pilot Computing (or something like that). People are still calling them "Palm Pilots", even though if they are Sony Clies or PocketPCs... yes, Bill Gates hates that.

RE: What will they call It?

robrecht @ 8/8/2003 5:50:09 PM #

"I think to be fair to all the PalmOS devices makers they would have to change the name of the company to something without "Palm" in it to reduce confusion."

Not a chance that they would do this.

Thanks, robrecht

Veld??

epall @ 8/8/2003 8:07:39 PM #

Remember back when the got the Tungsten and Zire trademarks? They also got Veld. Some think it was a model, maybe it's their new company name?

Regards,

Eric Allen
PG Team Leader
PalmGear.com
http://www.palmgear.com
THE source for your Palm Powered world!

Need solutions? Get answers at the PalmGear Knowledge Base! http://palmgear.mykbpro.com/

RE: What will they call It?

ozz @ 8/9/2003 5:05:59 AM #

Veld?? Aarrghh!! :-(

_________________________
Lord, help me become the person my dog thinks I am!

RE: What will they call It?

M3wThr33 @ 8/9/2003 4:27:35 PM #

It always feels weird when people call the Zire the cheap line, considering my Zire71 is above and beyond 90% of all PDAs ever released in some way or another.

I don't think you understand the gravity of the situation. We're in space.

RE: What will they call It?

sonylover411 @ 8/11/2003 7:51:06 AM #

The Zire is called the cheap line because it has such lower costs than other lines and companies. This doesn't mean it isn't a good value.

Sony's product cycle is in dog years!

RE: What will they call It?

HandyMan @ 8/14/2003 2:17:16 AM #

Handbright seems to have some good theory the whole naming thing:

http://www.brighthand.com/article/Whats_In_A_Name

I would agree with the article. Now let's start taking bids for the new name.

Shares??

HeavyUser @ 8/8/2003 12:04:21 PM #

What's going to happen with my Handspring shares???

RE: Shares??

Admin @ 8/8/2003 12:06:35 PM #

Handspring's shareholders will receive 0.09 Palm shares -- and no shares of PalmSource -- for each share of Handspring common stock owned. Palm, Inc. will issue approximately 13.9 million shares of Palm common stock to Handspring's shareholders on a fully diluted basis.

http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_story.asp?ID=5479

RE: Shares??

anjrober1 @ 8/8/2003 11:26:55 PM #

In other words, you are getting nothing at all....

Must have been a slow day for Palm

EdH @ 8/8/2003 7:46:03 PM #

Passing HSR is little more than filing a form and paying a fee. It only comes into play in industries where monopolies are possible and given Palm is under 40% of the share in the US and Handspring is under 4%, this had all of the suspense of and surprise of wondering whether or not Elizabeth Taylor was going to get married again. Then divorced again.

Make this a Reality TV show!

RhinoSteve @ 8/9/2003 6:48:51 PM #

In this corner, Jeff and Donna -- the ones that started it all. Good reputation, good ideas but poor strategic design and marketing. Along with the "J&D team" are some of the best electronic designers in the valley that have been at Jeff's side for years.

In the other corner, the Palm SG management. Proven consumer products marketing and operations background. They possess the ability get a product out that customers like. Also assisting are many who were picked over when Handspring was started.

Let's get ready to rumble!!!

RE: Make this a Reality TV show!

Marshall Flinkman @ 8/10/2003 9:24:12 AM #

Speaking of Donna, none of the articles I've read has had any mention of what if any role she'll have. Anyone seen/heard anything?

RE: Make this a Reality TV show!

RoelvdV @ 8/10/2003 10:43:15 AM #

Go to the first article on PIC (see link in this article) and do a search on Dubinsky. Second match is this: Upon execution of the spin-off and closing of the merger, the Palm Solutions board of directors will consist of seven members from the current Palm, Inc. board plus three members of the current Handspring board of directors: John Doerr, Bruce Dunlevie and Dubinsky.

She still there.

I think that Handspring could have been successfull, if they would have managed to sell the communicators worldwide in a package with phone-operators. In the US Sprint and other companies provide these cheaper deals, but in Europe you have to pay the full price for a Treo and then you can use your own GSM contract. Maybe Palm can come up with better deals, because a smartphone without a good deal from a phone-company just will be to expensive. I have never bought a mobile phone, they allways came with a good deal.

Greetings, Roel.