The Live Indian Entertainment Blog

Palm appears dead, at least as a separate entity. According to Bloomberg, the troubled smartphone firm is looking for buyers.

The report cites three anonymous people familiar with the situation. Reportedly, the company is working with Goldman Sachs and Qatalyst Partners to find a buyer. HTC Lenovo may make offers, said the people. Another company that might be interested, though not necessarily cited, is Nokia.

It is possible that HTC might buy Palm simply for its patent library. HTC has been sued by Apple over iPhone patents that it believes HTC infringes upon. If so, the odds of webOS remaining as one of the three current-gen smartphone platforms would appear to be slim, as HTC is heavily invested in Android and (still) Windows Mobile.

However, while Palm possibly infringes as well, with such features as "pinch-to-zoom," it has never been sued by Apple (though it has been threatened). Some believe that the reason is because of Palm's own substantial library of patents, some of which the iPhone seemingly infringes upon.

Previously, some analysts had gone so far as to target zero for Palm stock, thus saying the stock was worthless. The firm, while offering a great product in its webOS devices, has struggled mightily against not just Apple and the iPhone, but Google's Android platform as well.

Some of the issues in the relative failure of Palm's devices to take hold include the early announcement and late delivery (at CES in 2009, only to not launch until just before an Apple iPhone announcement), and giving Sprint such long exclusivity, which possibly hurt webOS' chances at Verizon as a raft of Verizon Android devices launched.

Palm's shares are up a dollar, nearly 20 percent, at the time of this writing.