With money-losing Palm (NSDQ: PALM) actively looking for a buyer, HTC has admitted to Bloomberg that it is weighing the pros and cons of having its own operating system.
In a phone interview, Cheng Hui-ming, HTC’s CFO, said: “We continue to assess, but that requires a few conditions to justify.” adding, “There are many multiple factors to be considered together, rather than a simple statement as to own or not to own.”
HTC may have to do its analysis quickly if it is indeed interested in Palm as reports indicated earlier this week. Since then, Reuters reported that Palm reached out to Chinese Telecom-maker Huawei for preliminary acquisition talks. While their sources indicated that they didn’t go anywhere, a laundry list of other companies have been named as potential suitors, such as Lenovo or Dell. HTC’s Cheng said the company has no specific timeframe for deciding whether it should have its own platform, and declined to comment on whether they were considering Palm.
There’s some logic to HTC wanting to own its own operating system. Companies, like Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) and BlackBerry, that own the entire process from hardware to software have a more integrated experience. Meanwhile, HTC relies on third-party platforms, like Google’s Android and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile to make phones. However, HTC would have to worry about what those two companies would think of it becoming a direct competitor on the OS front.
Huawei has just started making phones based on the Android operating system, however, it mostly sells back-end infrastructure and competes with Ericsson (NSDQ: ERIC) and Nokia (NYSE: NOK) Siemens. Whether it would be interested in owning the OS is unclear. Android is attractive because it is free.