Palm Gets Bailout Money, Banks On New OS

From CRN: Palm announced Monday it would receive $100 million from Elevation Partners in an attempt -- again -- to jump-start the ailing device maker. The investment caused the beleaguered vendor's stock to jump 22.5 percent yesterday, or 55 cents. That brought the share price to $3.05 -- better than its 52-week low of $1.14, yet significantly below its 52-week high of $8.94.

The money will give Palm some breathing room to determine whether its new "Nova" operating system, and its new devices based on it, will take off with consumers. The OS is slated to debut at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas beginning Jan. 6.

Once the master of its domain, the manufacturer of the got-to-have organizer of yesteryear has fallen on tough times. Elevation bought a 25 percent stake in Palm in October 2007 for $325 million, which is now roughly what the entire company is worth. At that time, the maker of the Treo cited the reason for the sale was to get the manufacturer out of debt. As part of the deal, formerApple (NSDQ: AAPL) vice president Jon Rubinstein, widely credited with developing the iPod, joined Palm as the executive chairman of the board.

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