Posts Tagged ‘Palm’

Hewlett-Packard announced that it will be pulling plug on WebOS hardware, including all phones and the Touchpad. WebOS is now barely breathing and may turn into a $1.2 billion blunder that kills the remains of the once glorious Palm, the pioneer of mobile devices as we know them today.

We know a lot about the Motorola Xoom and, through apparent leaks, we are learning more about the iPad 2 and coming HP/Palm Tablets and Smartphones.  I figured it would be fun to get ahead of the curve and start crafting out how the competition is likely to play out. So let’s get to it.

HP and Palm have a lot in common. Both companies have been very successful, both companies have iconic brands, and both companies have repeatedly gotten their butts kicked by Apple. In addition, both companies have historically been their own worst enemy in the Apple battle. Looking from the outside, it was almost as if Apple had people inside their companies paid to make sure the firm’s efforts against Apple failed. The Palm Pre 2 represents the very first joint offering between Palm and HP that could showcase what this new combined company can do and whether it can execute without shooting itself in the foot.

You could have almost missed it. HP announced that it has introduced the new Palm Pre 2 as well as WebOS 2, an updated version of Palm’s mobile operating system.

Hewlett-Packard revealed that it will not be offering smartphones based on Microsoft’s upcoming smartphone operating system, Windows Phone 7. Instead, HP will be betting the farm on its own Palm WebOS. Is it time for Microsoft to scrap Windows Phone 7 before it has been released?

Sure, brand names are a matter of taste and marketing. Who really liked the names “iPod” and “Wii” when they were revealed? It appears that HP’s name for its upcoming WebOS slate may fit right into a row of names that may raise some doubt: It appears that the name will be PalmPad, which isn’t quite the creative match for a product that comes out of $1.2 billion acquisition and carries the hopes of HP’s being able to compete with Apple’s iPad.

It took HP $1.2 billion to restart its smartphone business and save Palm. Don’t count on the existing Pre devices as they are already given away for a bargain. It’s WebOS HP wanted: The company confirmed new smartphones, tablets and netbook PCs and is telling developers to get to work.

The original HP tablet running Windows 7 at the most recent CES tradeshow was based on Intel’s Atom processor. HP now appears to have killed that product and replaced it with a rumored product under development with Palm, which should be based on ARM. These days, HP is Intel’s and Microsoft’s biggest and strongest partner. HP’s decision to drop Windows 7 and Intel, a result of years of frustration, signifies a major shift in the personal computing market and could result in the first real competitor to the iPad. But, regardless of that, it showcases a clear choice for ARM and one of the problems that Intel is struggling to overcome with Atom.

As HP announced that it will acquire Palm, the company that has made handheld computing popular will be swallowed and is likely to largely disappear. Here are 20 of the most notable devices that were introduced over the past 14 years.

HP announced today that it is buying Palm for $1.2 billion. This is great news for Palm, who has been searching for a “white knight” to help it out of a severe sales decline. It has been rumored that many companies were potentially looking at acquiring Palm, including Lenovo, HTC, ZTE, Huawei, etc. But HP was a surprise suitor. Palm stockholders get $5.70 for each share of stock in a cash deal. This is easy for HP as it represents only about 1% of yearly revenues. HP could have waited a few months and likely paid less, given Palm’s shrinking installed base and sales. But likely there were others courting Palm and so HP had to react now or lose the acquisition.

Hewlett-Packard announced that it has agreed to purchase struggling handheld maker Palm for $5.70 per share of Palm common stock in cash or an enterprise value of approximately $1.2 billion.

Rumor has it that HTC has walked away from an opportunity to acquire Palm and that Lenovo has emerged as the front runner to buy the struggling handset maker. Just like IBM’s Thinkpad enabled Lenovo to buy credibility in the U.S. market, Palm may do the same for cellphones.