Reports: Palm evaluating strategic options

Treo maker Palm Inc. is considering strategic options ranging from acquisitions to a full-out sale of the company, according to media reports. The news comes as the market for cellphones and smartphones continues to tighten for smaller players.
Palm hired investment-banking firm Morgan Stanley to advise it in various business options, including a possible sale of company, a private-equity investment or an acquisition of another business, according to reports.
Palm has long been the subject of such rumors. The company did not immediately return a request for comment.
Palm has been working to transition from a personal digital assistant maker and into a smartphone vendor. The company has come up on stiff competition from the likes of Research In Motion Ltd., Motorola Inc. and Nokia Corp.
Indeed, Palm’s ultimate future looks cloudy; Palm, along with the world’s tier-two handset vendors, is getting squeezed by the market’s top six players. Indeed, the market’s tier-two vendors lost a combined total of 3-percent market share, dropping to 16.2 percent last year from 19.2 percent in 2005. That means that the top six vendors managed to secure more than 83 percent of all handset sales last year. Perhaps as many as 100 vendors now vie for that 16-percent share.