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What was old is new again
PalmOne
There has been a lot of news at PalmOne and PalmSource over the past week. First Ed Colligen moves from interim CEO to becoming the permanent CEO of PalmOne, then yesterday PalmSource announces that its CEO, David Nagel, has stepped down. Patrick McVeigh, senior vice president of worldwide licensing, will be PalmSource's interim chief executive.
Before the ink dried on those press releases, PalmOne announced today that it will pay $30M to PalmSource for all rights to the Palm brand name. PalmOne will change its name to Palm Inc. later this year as part of the deal, and will use the name Palm on its products starting later this year.
It was also announced that PalmOne has renewed its license of the Palm operating system through 2009. Under the terms of the agreement PalmSource will receive minimum royalty payments of $148.5 million, which includes $65 million for calendar years 2007 to 2009 subject to meeting certain development milestones.
I personally am glad that we are returning to the days of a true "Palm handheld." I was never a fan of the PalmOne moniker and look forward to seeing the single word "Palm" on future Treos. The real question that remains is what happens to PalmSource. The company certainly seems vulnerable to a buyout, and not necessarily from PalmOne.
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