I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a genius when it comes to business. But MBA or not, the latest news out of Palm has to leave more than just me scratching my head in bewilderment.
Palm Inc, formerly known as PalmOne, formerly known as Palm Inc., announced today it is buying a perpetual license for the Palm OS from Access, a company that bought PalmSource last year which owned the license after splitting with Palm Inc in 2003, for $44 million.
Do you follow?
So in essence Palm Inc. is paying $44 million to buy back a
technology it gave away three years ago.
What does this all mean?
With Palm Inc. already running both the Windows Mobile OS and Palm OS one has to wonder if either sales of the Windows version are not going well or despite the best efforts of Access to botch up the purchase of practically a household name in handhelds, the darn OS is still doing well on the original Palm. Go figure.
What should you or your company do?
Buy smart phones.