Palm to sell stake; names ex-iPod chief as chmn
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Treo smartphone maker Palm Inc.  said on Monday it will sell a 25 percent stake to private equity firm Elevation Partners for $325 million in a deal that brings in a former senior Apple Inc.  executive as chairman.
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PalmSource, a maker of software for mobile devices, named Jean-Louis Gassee as its chairman on Tuesday. Gassee, a general partner with venture capital firm Allegis Capital, was previously the president and CEO of Computer Access Technology and of Be.
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PalmSource is to create a new version of the Palm OS with Linux at its core, the company said today after announcing a plan to buy Chinese phone software company China MobileSoft (CMS&#39;).
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PDA and smartphone maker Palm on Monday announced a recapitalization plan that will plant two former Apple executives on the company&#8217;s board of directors and will infuse $325 million in funds into the company. In return, Palm&#8217;s selling a 25 percent stake to Elevation.
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By Associated Press  Faced with mounting competition in the smart-phone market, Palm Inc. is selling a quarter of its company to a private equity firm to arm itself with new leadership, most notably the former technical guru behind the iPod.
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Jeffrey Ubben, former chairman and the largest outside shareholder of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc., sold more than half his stake in the company this month as shares reached their highest price in more than two years.
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Palm is still profitable but it can't thrive in the long run, according to a noted industry analyst. So now is a good time for the company to put itself up for sale.
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Smart-phone maker Palm Inc.  said on Monday it will sell a 25 percent stake to private equity firm Elevation Partners for $325 million in a deal that brings in a former senior Apple Inc. executive as chairman.
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Shareholders of Palm Inc. voted Wednesday to approve the partial sale of the struggling company to a private equity firm and change the boardâs makeup.
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(InfoWorld) - Palm's troubles continued on Thursday as the company posted a profit of $15.4 million for the fourth quarter, a 44 percent drop from its $27.2 million mark one year earlier, despite strong sales of its Treo smartphone. The company reported revenue of $401.3 million for the quarter ending June 1, down slightly from the $403.1 million it earned in the same quarter in 2006 and also below Wall Street's forecast of $406.6 million, according to analysts polled by Thomson Financial. The results come just weeks after the company faced rumors it would be acquired by rivals MotorolaÂ orÂ Nokia. Instead, Palm raised $325 million of extra money byÂ selling a 25 percent stake of the company Â to private equity investors. Palm is shifting its product portfolio from PDAs to smartphones, which are far more popular and offer a potential for greater profit margin because of their higher price tags. In the past quarter, Palm drew 86 percent of its revenue from smartphone sales, a huge swing for a company that in 1996 drew its entire revenue from the PalmPilot PDA. Palm's smartphone revenue of $344.2 million for the quarter was up 14 percent from the same quarter in 2006. "Our record Treo sell-through reflects strong fundamentals in the core focus areas of our business," said Palm CEO Ed Colligan. "I'm confident that in fiscal year 2008, more and more standard handset customers will demand the capabilities and ease of use of Palm smartphones, which aligns us well for future growth and profitability." Despite Colligan's optimism,Â Palm's smartphone sales did not help its results. Palm earned a profit of $0.15 per share in the fourth quarter, matching analysts' expectation of $0.15 but coming in far below the $0.25 it made a year earlier. Looking into the future, the company predicted revenue between $355 million and $365 million for the coming quarter, the first period of Palm's fiscal 2008. If the company meets the higher end of goal, it would beat its mark of $355.8 million in revenue for the first quarter of 2007. However, Palm may be distracted by change in its boardroom. As a condition of buying a large share of the company, the investment group Elevation Partners insisted on installing a new chairman, former AppleÂ vice president Jon Rubinstein. Palm also raised questions among investors in May when itÂ launched the Foleo, a miniature laptop Â intended to sell as a "smartphone companion." That product quickly faced criticism that its $599 price was too high and that its 10-inch screen was too large. Also on Thursday, Palm reported revenue of $1.56 billion for the full fiscal year 2007, down 1 percent from the $1.58 billion it earned in 2006. Palm earned profit of $56.4 million for the year, far below its $336.2 million profit in 2006, although the 2006 figure included a one-time tax rebate of $219.5 million.
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Carl Yankowski, who headed the handheld maker during the PDA boom, is tapped to head Ambient Devices, a Cambridge, Mass.-based consumer products company.
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Freescale Semiconductor Chairman and CEO Michel Mayer will leave his posts as soon as a replacement is found, the company said Friday.&quot;The time is right for me and my family to take some time off before exploring new challenges. The company is well positioned to continue its transformation,&quot; Mayer said in a statement.Freescale officials didn&#39;t respond to requests for comment.Mayer led the company when it spun off from Motorola&#39;s semiconductor group and went public in 2004. He also played a role in Freescale&#39;s buyout by four private equity firms in 2006 for $17.6 billion. The equity firms included The Blackstone Group, The Carlyle Group, Permira Funds and Texas Pacific Group.However, the company has been struggling financially, posting a loss of $525 million on sales of $1.54 billion in the fourth quarter of 2007. For 2007, the company reported a loss of $1.6 billion on net sales of $5.7 billion. Freescale&#39;s sales totaled $6.36 billion in 2006.The company&#39;s key customer remains Motorola, to which it sells chips for wireless handsets, networking infrastructure and other devices such as set-top boxes. Motorola, which is struggling financially and saw a management shakeup in recent months, is considering spinning off its handset business. Ed Zander announced in December that he would step down as Motorola&#39;s CEO.
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(InfoWorld) - Smartphone maker Palm Inc. is consulting with investment bankers on its strategic options, including the prospect of selling the company, seeking investment from venture capitalists, or making an acquisition of its own, according to a report in the The Wall Street Journal. Beset with growing competition in the smartphone market, Palm is discussing a range of options with bankers at Morgan Stanley, the newspaper reported, citing unnamed sources familiar with the discussions. WidespreadÂ speculation that Palm is likely to be acquired by another company sent the company's shares higher last week, rising nearly 13 percent during the week to close at US$18.30 last Friday. A Palm spokeswoman in Singapore could not immediately be reached for comment on the report. Palm, which sells the popular Treo smartphone, has a loyal customer base but the company faces increasingly tough competition from a range of competitors, such as BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM) and Taiwan's High Tech Computer Corp. (HTC), the world's largest maker of Windows Mobile handsets. HTC sells some of those handsets under its own brands, but most are made under contract for handset vendors and operators, which sell them under their own brands -- often competing head-to-head against the Treo. Analysts last week said a private sale could help Palm, shielding the company from quarterly scrutiny of its numbers and freeing up the company's management to make acquisitions necessary to boost the technology used in its smartphones. Â
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Palm Inc.  will sell a  25-percent stake to Elevation Partners, a Silicon Valley  private equity firm, for $325 million, the Wall Street Journal  reported in its online edition on Monday.
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Smartphone maker Palm is reportedly consulting with investment bankers about a sale, investment, or other move.
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- Palm Inc.  said it will sell a 25 percent stake to private equity firm Elevation Partners for $325 million, and use the proceeds along with the cash on hand and new debt to pay $9 in cash to stockholders.
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Treo smartphone maker Palm has hired a former Apple engineer who developed the foundation for the iPod operating system after he left the Cupertino company in 1996 and founded Pixo. Paul Mercer will help Palm develop future products.