TCL Communications, the parent company of Alcatel OneTouch, today confirmed to Phone Scoop that it has acquired the Palm brand and plans to revive the failed tech company.
"We are interested in the brand because we believe the brand has value," said TCL CEO George Guo. "It was once a very strong brand and there are many fans of this brand around the world, including people at TCL."
TCL intends to resurrect Palm with new hardware, software, and services -- but not on its own. It will ask the community to contribute ideas for potential new devices, operating systems, and apps. It will commit engineers and its manufacturing resources to the project, but hopes much of the R&D will come from the tech community at large.
TCL said it hasn't worked out the details of how this community-driven revival will function, but it is confident it can restore luster to the brand. "Palm was an original pioneer and we want to keep it that way.
We want to attract the people who have ideas on how to revive the brand in a meaningful way." Guo shot down the idea of using webOS, which is owned by LG, and ran on the Palm Pre, Pixi, and other phones.
"We are open to all ideas, but probably not webOS," said Guo. "Palm built by Palm fans is the intent." TCL expects to eventually offer both Alcatel- and Palm-branded products in the US. TCL said it couldn't comment on the terms of the acquisition. It will provide more details as they are developed.
Palm brand has always been synonymous with innovation throughout its history. As such it has consistently acted as a pioneer of mobile technologies. Now is the time to revive and bring back this pioneer spirit.
To do so, TCL Communication Technology Holdings Limited ("TCL Communication" or the "Company" which, together with its subsidiaries, is referred to as the "Group"; is very proud to announce that it will create a new Palm Inc., a US-based company that will take ownership of the Palm brand. New Palm Inc. will remain a truly Californian, Silicon Valley, based company leveraging on the talents and partnerships of the area.
What we understand is that TCL/ALCATEL OneTouch wants to make a new mobile OS (maybe) consulting to before and actual Palm phones owners and developers to make something totally new according to what the consumer wants NOW adding what was missing on before Palm devices.
Press Release:
TCL Communication co-(re)creates Palm
(LAS VEGAS, January 6 2015) – Palm brand has always been synonymous with innovation throughout its history. As such it has consistently acted as a pioneer of mobile technologies. Now is the time to revive and bring back this pioneer spirit.
To do so, TCL Communication Technology Holdings Limited ("TCL Communication" or the "Company" which, together with its subsidiaries, is referred to as the "Group"; is very proud to announce that it will create a new Palm Inc., a US-based company that will take ownership of the Palm brand. New Palm Inc. will remain a truly Californian, Silicon Valley, based company leveraging on the talents and partnerships of the area.
Palm has always carried a lot of affect and emotions. That's why TCL has set the direction to rebuild the brand involving Palm's very own community, making it the largest scale crowd-sourced project ever seen in the industry.
The objective goes far beyond proposing a more advanced device. It is to deliver absolute breakthrough innovations in Technology, Design, User Experience, Eco-system, Marketing, Supply Chain, and Business Models.
Palm will be fully supported by the various assets of TCL Communication:
- A best in class R & D organization, rich with 5000 engineers across 7 R&D centers around the globe
- The most modern and efficient mobile devices manufacturing facility
- A top level quality record recognized by the global tier 1 carriers and retailers around the world
- A cutting-edge supply chain ready for the flexibility required by the market today
- A global network already serving more than 170 countries and the most demanding customers of the industry with local Sales, Marketing and Technical teams
The exact timeline of the roll-out of the Palm project will be communicated at a later date.
TCL Communication, the 5th largest global handsets vendor, is operating globally under the ALCATEL ONETOUCH brand and TCL brand. It has already reached breakthrough positions, in multiple regions of the world.
During the past 3 years, TCL Communication has evolved from a leading position in feature phones to a top player in Smart Devices with a comprehensive portfolio of Smartphones, Tablets, IoT, Wearables, Mobile Routers. Today the company is adding new dimensions to its legacy hardware capabilities, turning itself into a true mobile Internet player with applications and cloud services in areas such as health care, education, smart home, video conferencing, music, etc.`
About TCL Communication
TCL Communication Technology Holdings Limited ("TCL Communication" or the "Company"; HKSE stock code: 02618) together with its subsidiaries (collectively the "Group") designs, manufactures and markets an expanding portfolio of mobile and internet products worldwide under two key brands -- ALCATEL ONETOUCH and TCL. The Group's portfolio of products is currently sold in China and over 170 countries throughout the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific. Headquartered in Shenzhen, China, TCL Communication operates its highly efficient manufacturing plant and R&D centers in various provinces of the PRC. It employs over 16,000 people in mainland China, Hong Kong and overseas.
TCL Communication is one of the few companies in Hong Kong or mainland China who owns or licenses 2G, 2.5G, 2.75G, 3G and 4G-patented technologies. It is also able to independently develop products and solutions for the GSM, GPRS, EDGE, CDMA, WCDMA, TDSCDMA and LTE. For more information, please visit its website at http://tclcom.tcl.com
For further information, please contact:
iPR Ogilvy & Mather
James Wong / Candy Tam / Stephanie Fung
Tel: +852-3920-7642 / 3920-7626 / 3920-7645
Fax: +852-3170-6606
SOURCE TCL Communication Technology Holdings Limited
