Saturday, December 27, 2008

Bono of U2 owns Palm now, rock 'n' roll next?

I didn't realized this until Owen Thomas from Valleywag wrote a gossip blog about the current relationship between Bono and Steve Jobs, or Apple in general.

The Irish rock star; Bono is one of the co-founders of Elevation Partners, a private equity firm that invests in intellectual property and media and entertainment companies, the firm is even named after U2's song (source: Wikipedia).

And as we know it from recent news, that Elevation Partners has injected a fresh blood into Palm in the form of $100 million, meaning Bono's firm now owns 39% of Palm stock share. It's hard to say the 39 number can gives you a total control of a company like Palm, but it surely gives Bono enough power to have a say on any important decisions related to Palm's future. Let's say like the new Palm Nova OS maybe...?

Actually, I'm more concern on whether or not Bono's celebrity status will affect Palm's future. Having a good yet eccentric public figure to represent a company is important, take Steve Jobs for an instance, the Apple CEO has been always connected to the success of the company he co-founded and his appearances are always awaited by the tech & geek world. This may sound like out of this world, but what if Bono becomes a spokesman for Palm, doing exactly like Steve Jobs: presenting Palm's new products on stage live at tech conventions or events. Can Bono adds the hype needed by Palm to rock the mobile world once again?

To be on stage, or behind the curtain, or steering the wheel from the rear, Bono might be the missing puzzle that Palm has been looking for since its glory days have slowly passed away not so long ago. But to be honest, I dunno about you but I still can't shake off that picture of Bono cuddling so friendly with two young girls in bikini from my mind. Talk about bringing the "hype" back into Palm... ;-p

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