Apple and RIM Tried to Buy Palm but HP Won Bidding War

A new report says that both Apple and RIM tried to buy Palm before HP's 1.2 billion won the bidding war for the company.

Business Insider posts the following information they learned from a source familiar with the negotiations:
● Apple was mostly interested in Palm's huge library of intellectual property and patents (450+ patents on file, another 400+ applications on file). And unlike some other bidders, Apple even seemed committed to funding Palm's operations, perhaps to challenge RIM's dominance in the keyboarded segment of the smartphone industry, our source says.
● RIM basically had the deal in its hands and "had to work incredibly hard to blow it," our source recalls. RIM initially came in higher than HP, but HP upped its bid, our source says.
● Google, likely interested in Palm's intellectual property, supposedly only wanted it because Google thought Apple might want it. But Google supposedly didn't know Apple was actually bidding for Palm, so it didn't proceed.
● Nokia, bizarrely, wasn't anywhere near the deal.

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