These days, when Palm’s shares dropped to the lowest level since Pre’s launch back in last year’s January, and now, when even Engadget has drafted Palm’s survival guideline, I’m going to renew the talks on why should Nokia buy Palm.  Now trading around 4$, Palm’s stock, was as high as 17-18$ when for already 3rd time, was reported, about alleged buyout of Palm by Nokia.

Not going much into the financial and technical details, I’ll bring over here 5  reasons for Nokia to get at least 51% of Palm’s stock.  Not that I love Nokia: just Nokia’s disappointing presence in the North American market is somehow unacceptable for us, mobile geeks, and world’s most valued brand is really underperforming in th U.S.

So let’s move forward and point out reasons.

1. Price – Can’t get cheaper

As said above, Palm’s actual buyout price can be as low as never before. Currently valued around Half a Billion US dollars is way cheaper than 4 billion or even 2 billion rumored before.   What Nokia gets, besides paying a very cheap price, goes below these lines, but underestimating purchase of a well established company with a significant brand presence in the North American market is a wrong way to go.

2. Patents

Some of you would probably comment on this like – “are you kidding?”. Well, I’m not! Almost every month or week a lawsuit pops up – like Nokia sues Apple, or Apple sues HTC over some patents that sometimes may tie manufactures’ hands. and particularly, yes! I’m talking again about Nokia -  getting whole lot of US authorized patents with Palm’s stock. Not yet a 40% market share, but another brick in the wall definitely.

3. OS and related technologies

Symbian – considered having a much better core than iPhone’s OS and even Android by many, is again underperforming. Well not really! still taking majority of market share but loosing it also pretty fast. I’d agree with those guys who say Symbian’s UI is not really suitable for North American buyers, who got used to iPhone stylish interface and to Android’s superb functionality already. Palm, with its WebOS, tricked us a bit back in good days and now Nokia, if takes the best from WebOS, puts it into Symbian – polishes, adds some Maemo and puts OVI store in line – I’d choose it! Why not? A lot better GPS than Android has, a music store (with some free downloads there), app store an email client also. Way to go!

4. Brand and Recognition

You should  have your eyes wide open already – but again back to US market and Nokia’s brand there. I know that Nokia is world’s 5th most recognized brand and Apple is only 20th, Palm isn’t in the top list, but Nokia is still not that popular in the US. Just think of a device named NOKIA Palm Gorgeous – sounds good, huh? When Palm was in good days – many people saying smartphone, were associating that word with Palm and many still do – I believe, and smartphones are  the weakest point of Nokia nowdays.

5. Channels and Partners

If you were following U.S. auto industry news, you’ll remember what most of the economists considered the main reason of Fiat’s interest in Chrysler – distribution channels. Palm closed almost all it retail stores well before these talks, but contracts with operators , especially Sprint and with more handsets these may go further to T-Mobile, Verizion, etc.. partners in Silicon Valley and more.

Finally, as Forbes’ Darcy Travlos stated back in last years  September Nokia will inherite Palm’s DNA – buzz of Pre, and…

the Silicon Valley data-centric insights on product development and Palm’s development team would be timely and critical.

Palm + Nokia = voice + data. Classic combo.

We’ll be watching the trend and speculations around.