With HP’s announcement today that they are
purchasing Palm, the loop is complete:
1992: Palm Computing Founded
1995: Palm Computing acquired by US Robotics
1997: US Robotics acquired by 3Com
1998: Palm Computing founders leave to create Handspring
2000: 3Com spins off Palm, Inc.
2002: Palm spins off PalmOS to PalmSource
2003: Palm merges with HandSpring to create PalmOne
2005: PalmOne acquires full rights to Palm trademark and renames back to Palm; PalmSource acquired by ACCESS
2006: Palm buys PalmOS source back from ACCESS.
2009: 3Com acquired by HP
2010: Palm acquired by HP
The whole thing makes my head dizzy.