Remember Palm? It was a brand at the forefront of personal digital assistants (PDA) before the days of the BlackBerry. After it was purchased by HP, the brand along with its WebOS had succumbed to competition with the rise of Android and iOS. Now it appears that the Palm brand might rise from the ashes in a surprise turn of events.
Smart phone maker Alcatel OneTouch has reported to have purchased trademarks of Palm from HP through a shell company that’s called Wide Progress Global Limited. Details of the transfer is scarce at the moment but a website mynewpalm.com has emerged hinting that something new might be coming. Even the new Palm’s tagline “Smart Move” is similar to Alcatel OneTouch.
Coincidently, the person that signed off the purchase on behalf of Wide Progress Global Limited is the President of Alcatel Onetouch and TCL of Americas and Pacific. The biggest question right now is what would Alcatel OneTouch do with the legacy brand? Alcatel could be launching a new range of smart phones that coincident has Palm on it. Or they could use Palm as a separate brand for the US market, due to its popularity and reputation.
Alcatel OneTouch which is a rebrand of China’s TCL smart phone has already made over 300 million devices so far that covers entry to mid-range models. It is possible that they might venture into the high-end smart phone segment using Palm as a brand. If this is the case, the Palm brand is set to live on in 2015. However we doubt they would be running on Palm’s WebOS.
