HP acquires Palm for $1.2 billion, webOS to accelerate
HP is buying Palm for $5.70 a share, or roughly $1.2 billion. Does this mean we can expect HP netbooks and tablets running webOS sooner rather than later? Sure would beat Windows 7 starter, wouldn’t it?
Says Todd Bradley, executive vice president, Personal Systems Group, HP:
“Palm’s innovative operating system provides an ideal platform to expand HP’s mobility strategy and create a unique HP experience spanning multiple mobile connected devices. And, Palm possesses significant IP assets and has a highly skilled team. The smartphone market is large, profitable and rapidly growing, and companies that can provide an integrated device and experience command a higher share. Advances in mobility are offering significant opportunities, and HP intends to be a leader in this market.”
Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein was also quoted:
“We’re thrilled by HP’s vote of confidence in Palm’s technological leadership, which delivered Palm webOS and iconic products such as the Palm Pre. HP’s longstanding culture of innovation, scale and global operating resources make it the perfect partner to rapidly accelerate the growth of webOS. We look forward to working with HP to continue to deliver industry-leading mobile experiences to our customers and business partners.”
The question remains, webOS or no, can HP fix the hardware and carrier issues that have plagued Palm since their re-invention, and can they do it fast enough for it to matter?
PreCentral.net is covering the Palm/HP merger story as it develops and will be following the conference call starting at 5pm. Head on over there for more…
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More competition = Better for consumers
wow didn’t see this happen.
This is some big time new I wonder how hp will incorporate palm phones or will they change the palm name.
Kind of anti-climatic. I think an HTC acquisition would have been more exciting as far as what could have been done for mobile phones..
Palms name will most likely stay on the phone.. Hp needs to fire there whole Mobile department becsuse the hp windows mobile phones were trash.
Congrats to Palm.
It may be all about the Patents.
There is no shortage of OS’s available for the picking, but maybe HP has plans that would be better served with WebOS than Android or Win Mo.
The rumored HP Tablet runs Win 7, and that is a great feature for the corporate world. But for Grandma, something simpler may be in order for tablets.
In addition, this leaves HP with a strong Toe Hold in the handset space from day one, plus a boatload of patents to wield like clubs. Its hard to say which is more lucrative over time.
EDS became HP Enterprise Services. 3Com became HP Networking. I’d wager that Palm becomes HP Mobility or something to that effect but the product names will continue to be Palm ones like Treo, Pre and Pixi. What gets integrated into HP will benefit from HP without question. HP will lower their cost structure, improve their hardware and manufacturing capabilities, greatly improve the supply chain and distribution and will provide access to HP Labs and innovation. The OS team will be freed up to improve their software. And don’t underestimate Mark Hurd’s relationship with business and even the Telcos. While HP didn’t sell handsets to the carriers they do sell hardware, software and services. All of this with an investment from HP will serve to make Palm, excuse me, HP Mobility much more of a player than Palm could ever do on their own (and with or without Roger McNamee.
Wow! HP just came out of nowhere! I agree with @Appleking the Palm name will most likely stay as HP’s mobile brand. Palm is a well known brand and it won’t be smart move for HP to change the name. I’m glad to see webOS will be kept alive and going.
HP Slate with webOS incoming ? iPad could have serious competitor.
Interesting!
Of course HP can fix the hardware issues.
HP makes cheap unreliable garbage anyway. I administer a room full of mostly HP servers at work. I’m constantly replacement ordering backplanes and motherboards throughout the year. The other non-HP servers run like a champ and have never had a major hardware failure. Now if the higher ups would budget enough money to replace these multiple pieces of garbage known as HP.
I like this move by hp
@CJ
Agreed
I’m havig visions of seeing ‘pc load letter’ as an error message on a Pre
Hopefully they will source HTC for the hardware, slap a snapdragon in there, all the GSM 3G bands and get them back to market. The current design leaves a lot to be desired.
The HPalm HPre HPlus… Sounds HPerfect!
@Cfroisland
“PC Load letter… the **** does that mean!?”
WebOS on slate hardware = SWEET.
Now HP can build a webOS tablet and Microsoft can build a Windows Phone 7 OS tablet ! Let the games begin
@GlennEU