HP buys Palm for $1.2bn

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After weeks of speculation that Palm could fold or be acquired, a buyer has come forth — HP has announced that it’s agreed to purchase Palm for $5.70 per share, or roughly $1.2 billion. The deal, which adds Palm’s patent portfolio and the webOS operating system to HP’s coffers, could subsequently give webOS a new lease on life for current and future smartphones, if not other mobile devices.

http://gigaom.com/2010/04/28/palm-to-land-in-hps-hands-for-1-2b-will-webos-be-resurrected/

Massive news for both the mobile and PC market. WebOS is a fantastic OS, having that software on the HP slate could knock the ipad significantly.

HP has had some bummers (iPAQ springs to mind) but it still remains to be the largest computer manufacturer in the world. The two working together could be very interesting indeed!
 
Very good news indeed. The WebOS on the Palm Pre is head and shoulders above both Android and iPhone OS. Unfortunately the physical handset lets it down severely.
 
The joint venture should be called FacePalm™

The Palm platform had a good plan but it was out at the wrong time with too weak marketing, a shaky start (bugs/performance issue on the Pre were resolved in a later update) and the phone itself wasn't up there with other high end phones.
 
The joint venture should be called FacePalm™

The Palm platform had a good plan but it was out at the wrong time with too weak marketing, a shaky start (bugs/performance issue on the Pre were resolved in a later update) and the phone itself wasn't up there with other high end phones.

HP and Palm have both had pitfalls with their mobile devices, but there's a kind of unity with their problems. HP has always had good, reliable hardware and the money behind them. Palm has exceptional software that needs to be put on exceptional hardware. HP seem to be keeping the structure of Palm in place, so hopefully they won't try to meddle with what they've been doing well, but aid the presentation and backing to their software foundation.

I think with this purchase we could now see HP vs Microsoft vs Apple vs Google.
 
I don't know about that, the thing is the only current real battle is with Google and Apple and if you look at the growing user numbers for Android compared to the steadyness of Apple's platform it would seem that the Android platform is going to come out the winner.

Microsoft with Kin and Phone series 7 seem to be doing their own thing and neither handset or OS of either are head and heels above Google or Apple systems.

I don't know where HP intend to fit into the mobile market with the big fruit and desert brands already established and taking hold of the market almost entirely now.

It's going to take a heck of a marketing team and amazing prices + features to draw people to them I feel.
 
I don't know about that, the thing is the only current real battle is with Google and Apple and if you look at the growing user numbers for Android compared to the steadyness of Apple's platform it would seem that the Android platform is going to come out the winner.

Microsoft with Kin and Phone series 7 seem to be doing their own thing and neither handset or OS of either are head and heels above Google or Apple systems.

I don't know where HP intend to fit into the mobile market with the big fruit and desert brands already established and taking hold of the market almost entirely now.

It's going to take a heck of a marketing team and amazing prices + features to draw people to them I feel.


True, Windows Mobile is a little out of its league these days. It's more OSX vs Android vs WebOS although I think WebOS has a really big fanbase that are just waiting for it to be lauched on a viable handset. I personally prefer WebOS to both Android and OSX. It had a few teething problems with process priority and process killing etc but I think the latest release is superb.

HTCs using WebOS would have been immense. I can dream.
 
I love webOS and my Palm Pre, if Palm had spent a bit more money marketing it and showing it off like apple did with the iPhone I think we would see a lot more of them. It's a shame its so unpopular as I love mine.

At the moment I think people thing should I get an iPhone, a Blackberry or maybe a HTC. If you read a lot of the reviews iPhone v Pre, the Pre normally comes out on top! I actually dont understand when people say the OS is good but the hardware is gash, I think they are both good.

Hopefully HP will see WebOS as the great product it is and possibly the Pre as well and renergise the brand image. Or might we see a new generation of HP phones running a rebranded webOS?
 
I really do not see what people are seeing in WebOS.
We were "unfortunate" enough to have hands on a Pre for a while.
No I'm not going on about the handset, but take that out of the mix and the OS was certainyl nothing special.

If WebOS was that great then more people would have suffered the hardware for this fantastic OS - Palm only sold 50% of the units they made.
If WebOS was so great then developers would have got extremely excited about it - they haven't.

Have all those people saying how great WebOS is actually used it for any length of time?
Because I really couldn't see what "new" it bought to the table.
 
I really don't understand why HP bought this. The battle is between iPhone and Android. Unless they wanted to buy some of the IP cheap?


The joint venture should be called FacePalm™

Unfortunately that's not possible. Gordon Brown has trademarked that one.
 
I really do not see what people are seeing in WebOS.
We were "unfortunate" enough to have hands on a Pre for a while.
No I'm not going on about the handset, but take that out of the mix and the OS was certainyl nothing special.

If WebOS was that great then more people would have suffered the hardware for this fantastic OS - Palm only sold 50% of the units they made.
If WebOS was so great then developers would have got extremely excited about it - they haven't.

Have all those people saying how great WebOS is actually used it for any length of time?
Because I really couldn't see what "new" it bought to the table.

Meh, as stated, Palm was poorly/barely marketed. Most review sites rave about their products and OS, but you'd be surprised how little impact that realistically has on someone buying a phone on a wide scale. If Palm had anywhere near the money that the market leaders do, you'd have seen a different ball game. And there's no one better than Apple to demonstrate just how much marketing affects technology sales, regardless of stats/sepcs/functionality or even useability.

I used WebOS for over a year, I've used OSX on my ipod touch for an age and I now use Android. I like all 3, but if I had to pick one that I liked best overall it would be WebOS. That's what I base my opinion on. S60 is shoved down the throat of most consumers which is why it does so well, but it's not really anything compared to the others functionally and looks-wise. Ford sells more units of car than bugatti, but that doesn't make them better cars.
 
True, Windows Mobile is a little out of its league these days. It's more OSX vs Android vs WebOS although I think WebOS has a really big fanbase that are just waiting for it to be lauched on a viable handset. I personally prefer WebOS to both Android and OSX. It had a few teething problems with process priority and process killing etc but I think the latest release is superb.

HTCs using WebOS would have been immense. I can dream.

WinMo and WinPho are totally different beasts. WinMo looks to be continuing for a long time yet (it's about the only OS that allows proper custom applications on it and why it's used in everything from bar code scanners to phones to phones used as mobile computers). WinPho looks like it's going to be truly unique (moreso than mobile OSx when it came out) and a very interesting proposition...

In a couple of years I can see it being something like Android top followed by Blackberry and WinPho and then Apple just above WebOS (Apple and WebOS at the bottom because one phone isn't going to be able to compete against a couple of dozen phones a year).

It is a shame HTC didn't back out, could have been epic.
 
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