At one point last year it seemed that Palm had the world at its feet with the early previews of its Palm Pre device, which was heralded by many as the true iPhone-killer. However, a lot has changed since then and Palm's fortunes seem to be on the wane again. Nevertheless, news has began circulating that Nokia may be looking to buy Palm. Read on after the jump for more details...

Early speculation has said that Nokia is interested in the company for its expertise with smartphones, such as the Pre and the Pixi. According to reports, Nokia would be able to better compete with its rivals - RIM and Apple - if it bought up Palm.

However, we don’t necessarily agree with this assertion, particularly when you consider that Nokia still commands the majority of the market and has just developed a new - Maemo 5 based - platform for its high-end devices, which so far, seems to have been received extremely well by customers.

Initial talk of a Nokia buy-out of Palm back in September pushed shares in the Californian company up by 8 per cent, with a reported 80,000 call contracts traded by midday. However, with nothing being “officially” confirmed, shares inevitably slid down 30 per cent after the initial bump to what they are today.

Apparently, Motorola, Dell, and Microsoft have also been named as potential buyers as well. Consequently, all of which, could be perceived as posing quite a threat to Nokia, both in terms or technological development and market share, if they acquired Palm, as all, bar Dell, have some kind of interests within the mobile industry. So, could this lead to am eventual buy out by Nokia simply to stop its competition getting their hands on it?

What do you think? Would you like to see Nokia buy up Palm, what do you think would be the benefits of such an acquisition? Tell us what you think in the Comments below.

Via: mobiledia