About three weeks ago, an analyst at Canaccord Adams set a price target of $0/share for Palm Inc. (PALM). The company had just announced that it projected revenue for its fourth fiscal quarater ending in May would be half previous estimates. Canaccord Adams said at the time that there was no value in the company’s common shares.

Since then, PALM stock prices have hit a new 52-week low and has hovered stayed below $4/share until last week, when rumors started that Palm would be bought out by Hong Kong’s Lenovo Group Ltd. or Dell Inc. (DELL) or Nokia Corp. (NOK) or perhaps Microsoft (MSFT).

Today comes news that Palm has retained Goldman Sachs and Qatalyst Partners to help the company find a buyer. Bloomberg reports that both Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC Corp. and Lenovo have looked at the possibility of buying Palm and may indeed make an offer for the company. Palm’s shares are up nearly 9% in pre-open trading this morning on the report.

Palm’s share of the North American smartphone market is just 4.3% according to a report from the Gartner Group. But the company does have a strong brand name, especially in North America; a high-powered operating system, WebOS; and a closet full of patents on hardware, software, and power-saving technology. So Canaccord Adams may be a little quick to declare that the company has no value. Palm’s market cap as of last Friday was $870.78 million.

The attraction of PALM stock to a phone makers like Nokia or unlisted Chinese companies Huawei Technologies Co. and ZTE Corp. is in its WebOS operating system. Bloomberg’s report quotes one analyst as saying that either Huawei or ZTE are more likely buyers because they are “eager to expand their international markets.”

The same could be said for HTC, which currently manufactures smartphones using the Android operating system designed by Google (GOOG), and is even building Google’s Nexus One smartphone. However, HTC, which got into the mobile phone business partnering with Microsoft, has essentially committed itself to Android and there doesn’t seem to be much reason to acquire yet another operating system. But as the Taiwanese company continues to build smartphones to sell under its own name, it would benefit from having Palm’s brand name to slap on the equipment.

If Lenovo is really interested it would be due to a decision to jump into the mobile phone fray, something the company has not done so far. Dell apparently has decided to steer clear of the crowded mobile phone space, but another computer maker that could be interested is Hewlett-Packard (HPQ). Computer makers that don’t have a mobile phone product are missing out on a fast-growing market, unlike the markets for desktops or laptops. HP, which is readying a tablet device to go head-to-head with the iPad from Apple Inc. (AAPL), probably sees little value in spending $1 billion or more for a small share of the mobile phone market. Lenovo is a more likely bidder.

The story from Bloomberg today is sourced to “three people familiar with the situation.” The likely suspects would come from one of the firms trying to find a buyer for Palm or Palm itself. Either they’re trying to lock-in a wavering suitor or they’re trying to drum up some additional potential buyers. But either way, they have a tough story to tell and a tough sale to close.

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