A short time ago,(last week to be exact)we had learned that HP had sold the rights to the Palm Inc. brand to Alcatel OneTouch, or rather the parent company who owns Alcatel, TCL. At the time there were virtually no details about whether or not we would see a rebirth of Palm, so as to find their way among the powerhouse handsets and mobile OS platforms like Android and iOS, all we knew was that the brand itself would now be owned by TCL. Today though we’re learning that TCL apparently does indeed have visions of bringing Palm back from the dead. So it would appear that we could be seeing a fresh lineup of Palm handsets sometime in the future.
According to Phonescoop who says TCL gave them the confirmation on their plans for Palm, they find value in the brand, which was part of their reasoning for interest in it as well as for purchasing the brand from HP. I said this earlier, that Palm is a household name and it is easily recognizable by anyone who has been around the tech industry for more than 10 years, and that alone could be a good reason to try and do something again with the name, whatever that may be. TCL seems to have the same idea, realizing that people “know” Palm and they too share the same appreciation for the brand that many people once did.
What exactly they plan to do in terms of how they’ll resurrect Palm or what kinds of devices we can expect from them is uncertain. Since they own Alcatel OneTouch though, who makes a number of Android powered devices, it shouldn’t be too far off to assume that we could eventually see some Android powered Palm devices at some point. TCL did apparently state as well that they want much of the inspiration to come from the community of tech enthusiasts, and will have a team of engineers and R&D professionals explore those ideas and draw from them to create something great. These ideas aren’t limited to any one sector, but would seemingly range from device design, features, apps, and operating systems. If any of this is actually true, TCL also stated that they are open to all ideas but they aren’t particularly interested in WebOS, the platform that originated on the Palm devices when Palm Inc. was still Palm Inc and is now owned by LG. Aside from that, their vision is to release a line of Palm devices that are more or less built(not literally)by Palm fans. If we were to see a Palm device running Android would you open to the idea?