palmOne Returns to Palm Roots

palmOne on Thursday announced that it had changed it's name to Palm, Inc. after completing the process of purchasing the rights to the name from PalmSource, the spin-off that controls the rights to the Palm OS. Also, the company announced a new logo that it will begin to use on products this fall.

The new logo, which is an updated version of Palm's old circular blue design, uses orange as its main color and a digital-looking font for the text. Palm says the color is meant to invoke a sense of energy and the font signifies the move toward digital content.

palmOne was formed in October 2003 after Palm Computing split into two companies, one to deal with the hardware and the other to deal with the operating system and software.

At the time, an agreement was struck to co-own the rights to the Palm brand name. However, in May palmOne bought the full rights to the name for $30 million.

"I'm confident we'll build our momentum even faster now that we can use the same term consumers and business people have always used for our products - Palm," said Ed Colligan, Palm president and CEO. "We believe the future of personal computing is 'mobile computing,' and we aim to deliver superior hardware and software solutions so that we can continue to set the bar in the industry."

What remains to be seen is whether the name change will even matter to consumers. palmOne has not been able to adapt well as the market moves away from PDAs -- Palm's signature product -- to smartphones with PDA capabilities.

The company's Treo has seen moderate success in the marketplace, although it remains a distant third behind Symbian and Nokia Series 60 based phones.

Palm also announced that its stock ticker symbol would change from PLMO to PALM - its former stock symbol. Also, the company will now be headquartered in Sunnyvale, California.