how appropriate for me to bring this thread full circle haha

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aNDFY8m7vaSg&pos=5

April 12 (Bloomberg) -- Palm Inc., creator of the Pre smartphone, put itself up for sale and is seeking bids for the company as early as this week, according to three people familiar with the situation.

The company is working with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Frank Quattrone’s Qatalyst Partners to find a buyer, said the people, who declined to be identified because the sale isn’t public. Taiwan’s HTC Corp. and China’s Lenovo Group Ltd. have looked at the company and may make offers, said the people.

Palm shares surged 32 percent last week on renewed speculation that the Sunnyvale, California-based company would get a takeover bid. Before the rally, the stock had plunged more than 60 percent this year, dragged down by disappointing sales of the Pre and Pixi phones. Chief Executive Officer Jon Rubinstein, who developed Palm’s latest operating system, was counting on the devices to attract customers and restore its status as an industry pioneer.

Palm, which has a market value of $870.8 million, could help its new owner vie with North American smartphone providers Apple Inc., maker of the iPhone, and Research In Motion Ltd., which sells the BlackBerry. Palm’s devices also compete with phones running Google Inc.’s Android software, and its patent holdings span mobile hardware, software and power-saving technologies.

Lynn Fox, a Palm spokeswoman, declined to comment. Qatalyst’s Sally Palmer and Goldman Sach’s Andrea Rachman didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. Chen Hui-Ming, the chief financial officer of HTC, declined to confirm or deny the company’s interest in Palm.

Lenovo, Dell

Wong Wai Ming, finance chief at Lenovo, also declined to comment on the company’s acquisition plans. In January, Lenovo paid $200 million to purchase Lenovo Mobile Communication Technology Ltd., letting it re-enter the market for handsets. The company had sold the mobile-phone unit in 2008 to focus on personal computers.

Dell Inc. also looked at Palm, though it decided against an offer, according to two of the people. Jess Blackburn, a spokesman for the Round Rock, Texas-based computer maker, didn’t respond to a call for comment.

Palm rose 51 cents, or 11 percent, to $5.16 on April 9 in Nasdaq Stock Market trading.

Ups and Downs

For Elevation Partners, the investment firm that owns about 30 percent of Palm, a sale would cap a 16-month roller-coaster ride in which the shares surged more than 10-fold before erasing most of the gain.

After Palm introduced the Pre at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2009, the stock jumped 80 percent in two days to $5.96. By September, the shares had climbed as high as $17.46.

The stock then dropped 79 percent over the next six months as Palm’s sales growth was outpaced by marketing costs, and the company lost market share to Apple and Google. Palm has posted 11 straight quarterly losses.

Founded in 1992, Palm helped pioneer the market for handheld organizers with its PalmPilot devices. The company was acquired by U.S. Robotics, which was in turn purchased by 3Com Corp. 3Com spun off Palm in 2000.

Rubinstein joined the company after leading development of Apple’s best-selling iPod media player. He was recruited to Palm by Fred Anderson, Apple’s former finance chief and a co-founder of Elevation Partners.

The Pre was Palm’s first phone based on the WebOS operating system. It debuted in June 2009, followed by the smaller, cheaper Pixi in November. The phones let users send e-mail, surf the Web, stream video and run multiple applications at the same time.

Both devices were sold in the U.S. exclusively by Sprint Nextel Corp., the country’s third-largest carrier, until Verizon Wireless began offering enhanced versions in January.

To contact the reporters on this story: Serena Saitto in New York at ssaitto@bloomberg.net; Ari Levy in San Francisco at alevy5@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: April 11, 2010 23:54 EDT