A financial analyst specified in a research note yesterday that Palm, Inc. could be up for sale, causing shares of the mobile device company to rise by 4 percent on the possibility.

ThinkEquity's Jonathan Hoopes based his hypothesis on Motorola's recently announced acquisition of another handheld-maker, Symbol Technologies. He wrote that the deal “just increased the likelihood that either Motorola or another major handset vendor will see value in Palm and move to acquire the company.”

Another reason for a possible Motorola purchase of Palm is Hoopes belief that the Symbol deal isn't enough for the number two mobile phone vendor to achieve its goal of outpacing market leader Research In Motion.

Previous rumors of a Palm buyout have come to naught, however.

Not to mean there aren't members of the Palm team who wouldn't welcome the right offer. Earlier this year, Palm board member Mark Nelson, who owns 8 percent of its stock, urged the company to seek a buyer, for example.

Hoopes said his confidence that Palm would be bought out by Motorola or another company “is a major reason we did not encourage investors to sell shares despite management’s recent track record of miss-execution.”

Earlier this month, for the second quarter in a row, Palm reported disappointing preliminary results. Palm lowered its guidance for this quarter below analyst expectations to between $380 million and $385 million back in June. During the second week of September the company said earnings for the quarter that ended on September 1st would fall between $354 million to $356 million, well off the predicted mark.

Selling fewer Treo smartphones, which make up the bulk of Palm's revenue nowadays, accounted for the reduction in revenue.

President & CEO Ed Colligan said, "We will soon address the market dynamics responsible for our first quarter revenue shortfall with two major product launches, one that improves our pricing position and both which extend our carrier relationships to global markets."

The first of these devices, the Treo 750v, was introduced on September 12th for Vodafone in Europe. It is a sleeker 3G-enabled Treo that will eventually make its way to the U.S. and other parts of the world. Probably after Vodafone's exclusivity ends after three months or so.

The other should be Palm's first $200 (at launch) smartphone.

If Hoopes theory is true, this wouldn't be the first time Motorola has expressed interest in what was once part of a larger Palm company. Last year Motorola had its eye on PalmSource, the platform developer that was spun off from Palm in late 2003. But Motorola was outbid by Japan's ACCESS Co. in the end. In fact, the Chicago Sun-Times reported the electronics giant asserted it had even closed the deal on September 7th, a couple of days before ACCESS announced its buy out.

Motorola's connections to Palm go back to the beginning of Palm-based handhelds. Nearly all the company's PDAs and smartphones ran on Moto's DragonBall MX1 microprocessors until 2002.