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HP To Buy Palm For $1.2 Billion
necro81 writes "Palm, Inc., which has struggled in recent months after making a splash with its Pre smartphone, will be bought by HP, the world's largest computer maker. The deal has been approved by both companies' boards, and should be wrapped up this summer. HP will get Palm for about $5.70/share (about 20% above today's closing price), or about $1.2 billion. That's a pretty good deal, considering that in the months following the launch of the Pre on Sprint's network, Palm's share price topped $16. But marketing blunders hindered the Pre's more widespread adoption on other carriers, and the company's very existence has recently seemed in doubt."
Smart move if HP is thinking about getting back into the phone business. They probably threw the idea around and came to the conclusion that they'd be another also-ran if they just pushed Android/WP7 sets (Especially since thats the move Dell is making)
As a Pre owner I would be glad to see WebOS on some adequate hardware, and in a tablet form as well.
HP, the world's largest computer maker.
HP are still that big? I haven't seen one of their products in years.
I care not for your karma and your mod points.
Since HP already own 3COM, who spun off Palm in 2000 (with a first day valuation of something like 30 times what they are paying for it today), one could almost say that Palm is being bought back after 10 (not so happy) years as an independent company.
Why?
WebOS has a better UI than Android does. And yes I am an Android user my wife has a Pre. WebOS is a good OS that had a STUPID SDK for a long time. They have fixed that and will soon offer access to the camera and mic which should help even more.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
You won't have to do it in RPN ... you will, however, have to adapt to HP making yet another random variant on the layout of the keyboard as HP plays "spin the wheel of keyboards". It won't be QWERTY, but it might be QVELTI.
I swear, I have never seen two HP keyboards with the buttons in the same place -- and, sometimes they have buttons I've never seen before. I mean, seriously, I've seen HP keyboards where the left-shift key was the size of a penny with a completely redundant "\" + "|" key to the right of it when there was already one of those in the usual place above the "enter". What the hell??
There really needs to be a law about making up new keyboards layouts for no good &*^%*(*&*%# reason.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
... that just wouldnt die. Palms occasionally brilliant products and innovations, are completely outdone by the incompetence of their marketing and sales people. Everytime I see a press release from Palm I am surprised they are still around, and its been like this since they got spun off from 3Com.