[Palm] The boards of directors of Palm, Inc. (Nasdaq: PALM) and Handspring, Inc. (Nasdaq: HAND), a leading maker of Palm OS(R) smartphones, today announced that they each have unanimously approved a definitive agreement for Palm to acquire Handspring to form a new, stronger market leader in mobile computing and communications. The Palm board also gave final approval for the spin-off of PalmSource, Inc.

Two interesting things here:
1) Palm buys Handspring. According to the release: “Immediately following the completion of the spin-off, Handspring will be merged with Palm, and the merged company will be renamed later in the year.”
2) Palm spins off Palmsource. Which: “a subsidiary responsible for developing and licensing the Palm(TM) operating system, and the Palm Solutions Group, a business unit responsible for designing, making and marketing the world’s leading handheld devices”

So, let me see if I understand this. Palm has two groups: software and hardware/os. The hardware group forms a new company. The software group that remains aquires handspring, and will rename to something new.

Bizarre.