Palm Looking At Other Options: webOS Licensing And Further Investments

Late last night, news broke across everyone's desk that Palm was putting itself up for sale. That's tough information for a lot of people to swallow, but the painting is right on the wall. With a substantial loss reported earlier this year, and the simple fact that the Verizon Wireless bred Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus didn't sell nearly as well as Palm would have liked doesn't make it any easier. And, while talk of a sale is hard for Palm fans to hear, many consider it the right thing for the company to do. But, what may be better, are the two other options that Palm has up their sleeve.

Also in being talked about, and perhaps passed around all the right people, is the possibility of licensing the webOS mobile Operating System, and finding other capital investments. If Palm was to sell themselves to another company, like HTC, there's no telling what could come of the aftermath. Palm could keep their own title and continue to manufacture their webOS platform, but that's not likely. With these two other options, Palm could remain their own company, which (we imagine) might be Palm's ultimate goal.

Licensing the webOS Operating System might sound like a good idea to some, but we're of the mind that putting it on a handful of devices, which might be manufactured by HTC or Motorola (for example), is definitely not the way to go. There's some longevity to webOS, and if it could be put in a killer piece of hardware (specifically one, maybe two), then it could show that the OS is definitely still in the ball game of smartphone market share. Investments will probably be the best way for Palm to stay in the game, along with allowing them to keep their patents to themselves as well as be the sole manufacturer of their technology. However, they would have to turn on the afterburners, and make sure that the investment actually turned into something more than recycled handsets on other carriers, along with poor launches.

[via PreCentral]