Question: Should Nokia Buy Palm? I think not. Well the reason I pose this question is because Brain Blair of Wedge Partners says that in his opinion that Nokia needs to buy palm to stay competitive and relevant. As it stands right now, Nokia is the World leader in cell phone handset sales. They currently hold 35 percent of the market that means for every 100,000 handsets sold in the world, 35,000 purchased are Nokia. Now Brian, looking at his data has come to the conclusion that Nokia needs to buy Palm to stay in this position. He announced this in an open letter to Nokia’s Board of Directors. He also continues to say that Symbian and Maemo are “inferior, lacking the polish and smoothness offered by other OS’”. Here’s an excerpt from the letter, “You need each other,” Blair explains in an open letter to Nokia’s leadership. “You have the manufacturing and distribution capabilities and global carrier relationships and Palm has the second best operating system behind the iPhone. Alone, it will be difficult for Palm to ramp globally and compete with the top players largely because it takes meaningful marketing dollars to ramp units across global carriers especially while you remain focused on R&D efforts. You, by yourself, will cede market share to your competitors each quarter as smartphones become a larger part of global handset sales and you fail to offer a compelling offering in that category. I know you said you expect flat market share in 2010 but that isn’t going to happen if you don’t act. I think you could lose 10% of your share by the end of 2010 to your competition, taking your global share under 30%. However, together, as a unified company the two of you would rock the foundation of the handset industry and create real worry for your competition because each of you bring critical elements to the table that the other lacks and you would be a powerful force complimenting each other’s strengths and addressing the other’s weaknesses.” What ever his point for this letter, whether it be for Palm’s behalf or just trying to look out of Nokia future interest’s saying that the world’s number one leading smartphone software platform is “inferior” probably isn’t the best way to gain positive attention.