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To: Ron McKinnon who wrote (42601)	8/8/2002 8:09:50 AM
From: DanZ	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 53068

but has never made a dime profit Technically you are correct. They only earned 8 cents per share in 2000. lol Seriously, I agree with you, which is precisely why I think that PALM would be attractive to a company such as Dell or Gateway. They could eliminate most of the G&A expense (about $60 million) and a big part of the marketing expense ($240 million) through consolidation. Heck, Dell made money in the last two years even though their gross profit margin was only 17%. In 2000 when Palm earned 8 cents per share, their gross margin was 42%, or triple that of Dell, but Dell made more money per share! In 2001, when sales increased nearly 50%, their gross margin actually went down to 32%. That would seem to indicate that they discounted heavily to build market share and sales, but they lost money. They should be able to make money even though their gross profit margin isn't all that high. Dell is the proof. They just need to change their cost structure, and an acquiring company could do that and unlock the value in the brand name.