If the buzz surrounding Palm is to be believed, it is likely that they will soon be bought out. This is big news of course, because Palm was once the leader in PDA's as well as “smartphones.” The big question for us is how it will affect the iPhone.

Some analysts see a takeover by either Nokia or Motorola is likely, and will also likely have an adverse effect on the iPhone launch. I'm not so sure that I agree. Of the three companies involved, none of them appear to have anything in the works that will be competing with Apple on a direct level. It will still be a phone running WM6 or PalmOS, and there are already plenty of WM6 phones in the works.

Granted, the buyer will have access to Palm's likely vast resources. But even if they were to develop some sort of iPhone killer, there's no way that anything of that sort would be out in time to disrupt the iPhone launch.

Looming Palm takeover could hinder Apple [via appleinsider]