HP Wanted $1.2B For WebOS and Palm

PolygamousRanchKid passes along this quote: "As baffling as it may seem, HP was trying to rid itself of Palm without taking a loss on its purchase, a source with knowledge of the negotiations told [VentureBeat]. The company seemingly ignored that Palm's value had fallen significantly since HP purchased the smartphone pioneer in April 2010, thanks to the spectacular failure of the HP Touchpad tablet. And the fact that HP didn't make any progress with its new webOS phones, the Pre 3 and Veer, didn't help either. ... The $1.2 billion asking price shines some light on a story we heard from another source: At one point, HP's team tried to pitch the sale to Facebook but was practically laughed out of the room. And yes, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was present at the meeting, although he apparently didn't say much (I'm sure whatever he was thinking at the time would have been gold)."

Comments

Ouch

[lennier1]

1.2 billion for a property which they've mostly continued to run into the ground, apart from the patent portfolio?

Re:Ouch

[gl4ss]

you'd have to remember that it was worth 1.2billion _ONLY_ because hp bought them! no-one else would have paid so much money for webos ip.

because, uh. you could just like, take meego base for free. and even that ain't worth 1.2 billion and webos is less parts than that.

Re:Ouch

[hairyfeet]

That would be true IF there weren't several already rock solid bases to build off of, but that isn't the case. you have Android, MeeGo, and several Linux embedded versions you could easily build off of and roll your own for a hell of a lot less than a billion because most of the hard work is already done and you could concentrate on customizing it to your platform and needs. That is why when ms Noyes at LinuxInsider asked me what i thought the next big OS would be I said there answe was simple, there won't be any. Those that want to stay proprietary will stick with MSFT and Apple and once they sign the NDAs will be able to customize to their needs and those that want the community to help or want more control will simply go Linux or BSD based.

There really isn't a point in reinventing the wheel anymore like there was in the old days when OS/2 and NeXT and WinNT were born because the old models had fundamental flaws, frankly all the real nasty problems have been pretty much solved and any of the above could be a solid base for a product easily. Why do you think Google used the Linux kernel instead of writing one from scratch? its not like they couldn't afford to, it was just kinda pointless when there was already one there that did what they needed with a Linux they could live with. they could have just as easily signed an NDA and had the entire WinMo source code if that would have been their wish but by going with a FOSS kernel they could see what the community cooks up and roll the best ideas into their own product easily.

So I doubt we'll suddenly see some completely new OS pop up on the scene and I was stunned when they announced how much HP was gonna pay for Palm. I had to double check to make sure it wasn't the first of April because i thought surely nobody would be THAT stupid, but I guess it just shows that the old HP is long gone and if the current HP board had a sensible thought between them their heads would probably explode. Personally i bet even being opened up as FOSS won't save WebOS as there is already too many familiar with Android and the ecosystem for it is too highly developed. As MSFT is learning its the apps stupid and having a truly great mobile OS don't mean dick if all the apps folks want isn't already there and waiting.

Re:Think...

[Anonymous Coward]

In a few years, Facebook might buy HP for $1.2 billion.

in a few years the facebook fad will be over

Re:Probably

[gorzek]

So far, Facebook has seemed content to grow their core business rather than branch out into other offerings. They also don't currently sell any physical items at all (as far as I know), so going into a really tough market like mobile devices would be a huge investment without any guaranteed payoff.

Lol

[lightknight]

They considered selling off their hardware business (accounting for 33% of their revenue), and now they don't want to take a loss selling a company that they bought and ran into the ground.

Who, exactly, is running this company, and why?

Re:You mean googlebook...

[the linux geek]

Neither webOS or Android is just "a skin" on Linux. Android uses a Linux kernel, but the rest of the stack is almost entirely custom and completely unrelated to anything most people would recognize as "Linux." webOS is closer, but still involves extensive custom engineering, especially for the graphics/video components.

Re:Probably

[CAIMLAS]

There is no such thing as a 'saturated' market - only if the market is selling a commodity, with no room for the price floor to drop or the feature/functionality ceiling to be raised.

In this case, the 'smartphone market' is anything but saturated. There are a half dozen or so competitors (HTC Sense + Android, Windows Phone, Android, iOS, Symbian, Blackberry), and they each have a non-trivial percentage of the market. There is room to improve on each and every one of those platforms. webOS improves in a number of ways on each of those platforms, some of which Android 4.0 -tries to implement.

webOS is simply superior in a number of areas - hardware requirements and performance being one of them. Its downfall is shit hardware: well designed handhelds have never, ever been HPs strength (and they've fucked it up consistently since they bought Compaq for the iPAQ line).

IMO, if anyone were to be a good buyer for Palm, it'd be HTC. That would be a pretty picture, IMO.

Re:It's simple.

[sincewhen]

They'd have to be idiots

I think you've identified the problem.