Nokia possibly interested in Palm

Nokia, among other candidates, is said to be in talks to acquire Palm Inc, the creator of the Treo. With a price target of $20 per share, the transaction would cost 2 Billion dollars to the new owner.

I do understand why Palm would like to sell: the Treo brand is still flying high, but there are significant clouds on the horizon. On the hardware side, they are under attack by HTC (which, at least, provides some components for the Treo 700w), Samsung, LG and soon, Apple. On the software side, Windows Mobile is making big strides in the smartphone market and Palm will have a hard time to compete.

If this speculation is true, it simply means to me that Palm doesn’t think that it can compete in the near future. Either way, I think that the Treo brand will survive – do you?