Smart phone and digital assistant maker Palm Inc., famous as the producer of the original Palm Pilot, has started looking for a company to take them over.  Low sales of their newest smart phones, the Palm Pre and Palm Pixi, spurred the announcement.  The announcement caused the price of the stock to rise over 20%.

Palm has seen their profits, market share, and stock price tumble recently as competitors Apple, Nokia, Motorola and Research in Motion have made steady gains against the company.  After reporting losses last quarter that were larger than analysts had expected, its stock price dropped, and remains today at about half of its value at the end of last year.  Some analysts had their price targets for the company cut to $0, meaning that, left unabated, they expected the price to drop until it, and the company, were worthless.

The company hopes that its infrastructure and brand names will prove attractive to new investors.  They state that the best option right now would be a foreign company looking to break into the US market.  In such a case, the existing infrastructure and name recognition would aid the foreign company in the process.  Regardless, Palm Inc. needs a structure-change soon or the company will have to consider bankruptcy.