According to Bloomberg, Palm is for sale, and the top candidate might not be somebody you’d expect. HTC is currently the target of an Apple lawsuit claiming 20 counts of patent infringement on iPhone IP. Buying Palm could give Google’s handset maker of choice the patents it needs to fight the Apple suit. Smart play, fellas.

HTC isn’t looking for hardware – it needs an operating system. As it stands, only Google and Apple have what is considered a modern mobile operating system (sorry, RIM, you aren’t even close). Unfortunately, HTC would probably only use the purchase to give it enough patents for a war with Apple, not because it actually thinks WebOS will go anywhere. Palm didn’t sell nearly enough handsets to keep the world interested in WebOS.

HTC wants to avoid is a costly licensing settlement with Apple that could affect profits far into the future. Spending several hundred million dollars on a dying company could be the cheap alternative it’s been looking for.

Part of the hullabaloo surrounding Apple’s recent litigation against HTC was that it supposedly came with little warning. That would have left HTC without much time to find suitable workarounds for the infringements in question, if it actually wasn’t warned in the first place. According to Oppenheimer’s Yair Reiner, Apple did warn handset makers that it would be much stricter with regard to IP violations in the new year.

“Starting in January, Apple launched a series of C-Level discussions with tier-1 handset makers to underscore its growing displeasure at seeing its iPhone-related IP [intellectual property] infringed. The lawsuit filed against HTC thus appears to be Apple’s way of putting a public, lawyered-up exclamation point on a series of blunt conversations that have been occurring behind closed doors,” Reiner wrote in a report on the matter. If he’s to be believe, HTC may be the first in a string of suits that could lead to lucrative licensing deals for several of Apple’s technologies.

Source: CNN

It seems like Apple is filing hundreds of patents a day, so it’s not really much of a surprise that the company throws out an infringement suit from time to time. Today, it’s HTC. Apple filed a suit against HTC claiming infringement of “20 Apple patents related to the iPhone’s user interface, underlying architecture and hardware.”

The suit seems more appropriately targeted at Android, though HTC is marginally involved with things like Sense UI and obviously the hardware. Still, I can’t shake the feeling that the real issue is with Google’s OS, and maybe some multi-touch stuff here and there. Whatever the case, old Stevie isn’t happy. A press release quoted him with the following: “We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it. We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.”

If the lawsuit succeeds it will likely end in HTC being forced to license patents from Apple for its devices. The only other recourse would be placing a halt on the import and sale of HTC devices, which seems pretty unlikely.

Source: Apple

Take a look at that phone. It’s like the Nexus One, right? Just prettier. That UI looks great. And is that an optical trackball I see? This is the HTC Desire, the Nexus One’s smoking hot younger sister. It seems a bit strange that HTC would enter a contract with Google, build the Nexus One, and then release a better phone just a couple weeks later. It’s a trend that’s happening often with Android phones, and I think it’s starting to hurt the platform.

Consider the Droid. It was, at the time, the best Android phone to date. It looked great, pioneered Android 2.0, and debuted on America’s favorite network. By all accounts, Droid owners should have been very happy people. That is, until the Nexus One rolled into town. It had a newer version of Android, a better hardware interface, and it did away with that hideous physical keyboard. Unfortunately, a lot of Android fans had already flocked to the Droid to show their Google support. It’s a big problem in the US, where most consumers lock into contracts for subsidized hardware prices. The Nexus One released with lackluster sales.

Now this. There is no official word on a US release, but it’s headed for Asia in April and likely stateside shortly after. As pretty as this phone is, and as great as the Sense UI may be, I’d bet we’ll see some underwhelming sales numbers. If people didn’t buy the Android, they almost certainly picked up the Nexus One. Anyone that’s left is there by mere happenstance – an unwillingness to pay a disconnect fee a few months early, perhaps. This could be the best phone in the world, but the pace of Android hardware release will turn it into an anecdote.

Apple has been prone to the same thing in the past. If you ever bought an iPod you know it was playing second fiddle in just a few months. It’s something Cupertino got right with the iPhone, though. Even though there have been several iterations, Apple has kept its mouth shut about the product until just days before launch, giving it time to offload some of the older hardware before the newest version launches. Does it piss some people off? Sure. But much less so than watching new hardware roll out every month or two or getting an announcement of new hardware on the same schedule.

The world’s first self-titled “superphone” isn’t posting super sales. Frankly, the numbers are terrible. Embarrassing. Worse than I ever would have expected. The Nexus One has only sold 80,000 units in its first month.

It’s hard to say where the problem lies. Sure, the phone wasn’t marketed very well, and what efforts were made were aimed a demographic that likely already has their smartphone of choice. It also launched shortly after the Droid, so Android fans had just picked up a new phone. There’s also the fact that it was being subsidized by T-Mobile, which just doesn’t have the kind of support Verizon’s got.

Whatever the reason, I was surprised by the number. The iPhone, by comparison, sold 600,000 units in its first month. The Droid sold 525,000.

Source: Wall Street Journal