Palm Sells Out to Hewlett Packard : Apple's Newest Competitor

[nickhesson]

Alright folks, here's a little dish of non-iPhone related news, but nonetheless, a rather important piece of information for the mobile smartphone market.

News has come in that Hewlett Packard, HP, has acquired Palm for $1.2 Billion today. The agreement is confirmed and definitive, approved by the HP and Palm boards of directors.

It's an obvious move for any computer company, to move into the mobile smartphone market, as it's one of the fastest growing industries right now. Technology is accelerating at a ridiculous pace, and with all of the community involvement, with all the various models of smartphone devices, it continues to grow out of control as companies battle to be the number one device. Police raids, even being a player in all of this smartphone madness.

Nonetheless, the news of HP buying out Palm, is actually quite exciting, as we now have a global scale computer manufacturer (besides Apple) jumping in on the exploding market. I am excited to see what HP will bring to the already existing Palm technology.

“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,” said Todd Bradley, executive vice president, Personal Systems Group, HP. “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.”

“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,” said Jon Rubinstein, chairman and chief executive officer, Palm. “We look forward to working with HP to continue to deliver industry-leading mobile experiences to our customers and business partners.”

Source: HP to Acquire Palm for $1.2 Billion | Business Wire

[whereswaldo]

i have a feeling that steve jobs might just launch a full on attack at hp now, like with adobe and google

[iAgent]

Interesting

[rickybobby]

Cant wait to see a HP phone i love there pc's

[johnr9412]

So will there be a continuation of the pre?

[adrian1480]

webOS is a good system...but they are yet another OS that doesn't have any must-have features.

[Melech518]

Haha, palm being a competition? HP just keeps on buying old technologies...good luck fellas!

[battlecrushr]

interesting to see how this turns out.

loving ur new pic nick

[Pitbull2o08]

I rather enjoy Hp's touchsmart PC... it's really quick and accurate.

[romeo_herman]

Finally, hp have the smart phone....

[MetallicaFan1991]

Why??? This was a bad move, Palm is dying, they can not compete with the iPhone and Android OS, never mind the companies like Nokia who make normal phones.
HP should use Palms technology and use Android as their base OS.

[stfudvs]

i liked the pre, but no comparison to a rooted iphone


and i bet in the future thats what ill say about apple's ipad after i have a rooted hp slate

hurray for capitalism!

[Happy Noodle Boy]

A Slate with WebOS would be so awesome.

[Cer0]

I think HP is going to use this more on the PDA and will make it a slate OS.

[lolcats1]

A Slate with WebOS would be so awesome.

correction. a slate with an actual OS, and not a cobbled together mobile one designed for 3 inch phones would be acceptable.

[MetallicaFan1991]

^Lol isn't that what the iPad and WePad are?

[Fhadso]

Just what we need. More Windows Mobile phones.

[ty22]

correction. a slate with an actual OS, and not a cobbled together mobile one designed for 3 inch phones would be acceptable.

You don't have a clue what WebOS can do. Do you? And BTW, this is what the iPad is anyway. Full desktop OSes on tablets (especially now that they are getting thinner) are laggy messes.

[robbpell]

just the name hp makes me cringe ive hated every hp computer ive ever owned but i guess thats just my personal opinion

[Jahooba]

I got the Pre a couple weeks ago. I love it. It has all the customization features of a jailbroken iPhone, minus the billions of apps.

Now that developers know it's going to stick around a while, I think they'll start coming back and making more apps for it. There's already a bunch of games from Gameloft on there, and some other big names. What it needs desperately is an office suite, though, and more apps for organization and productivity. There's also a bunch of new features in the new SDK that will give access to the camera and other internal hardware. I think that's mainly what's limiting it at this point.

Oh, and get this, because webOS is based on Linux, some gurus have already figured out how to overclock it! There's an 800Mhz kernel floating around (up from 500Mhz!). There are some exciting things you can do with the Pre. I think you guys would really like it, as long as you are able to put up with the finicky OS that feels a little like a beta 2 or 3. It's got a small, tight, enthusiastic community though, and some extremely smart people making apps for it and tinkering with the hardware.