All you recklessly E-Trading stock junkies who just cashed in big following this Palm IPO, don't forget to thank those who made your sudden windfall possible. There are a lot of people out there who made a lot of money when Palm's stock zoomed to a staggering first-day high of 165 before finally closing at 95 or so. Well, did you know that at least some folks are partially crediting the success of Palm's IPO to Apple Computer? No kidding; a CNET article tells the tale.

Think about it for a second; why did Palm's stock do so well? Well, okay, mostly it was because millions of amateur Internet day-traders with their fingers on the "buy" button heard PALM was going to go through the roof, so they participated in a self-fulfilling prophecy in the quest for a quick payoff. But on a deeper level, the IPO was also successful because there's a lot of confidence in Palm's executive management team. And guess who makes up that management team? Lots and lots of ex-Applefolk. Palm's chief marketing officer is Satjiv Chahil, who was Apple's senior veep of corporate marketing back in 1996. Then there's a whole string of Palm veeps-- the veep of worldwide sales, the veep of platform engineering, the veep of marketing, the veep of product development, and more-- all of whom are Apple alumni. Heck, there are even two ex-Apple people on the board of directors. It's like a frickin' reunion party or something. So make sure you thank Apple when you're counting your Palm gains.

On the flip side, we have to assume that there are at least a few people who are going to be cursing the heavens after they bought PALM at 165 and promptly watched their investment lose half its value in a day. All we can say is, don't blame Apple for that one-- they're only responsible for the good karma. Blame CNET instead, who probably offended the gods of "Duh" when they had the gall to claim that Palm's translucent, comes-in-different-colors Palm IIIe was "perhaps coincidentally" similar to the iMac. Yeah, and perhaps it's a coincidence that all the rest of those translucent, brightly-colored computing devices on the market these days look a little like the iMac. Sheesh...