HP buys Palm, we want a webOS Slate

Palm, that company that used to run the handheld business, after several attempts to solicit buyers/license its software to any bidders/play music on corners with its hat out for tips, finally has a new home.  HP announced yesterday that it will purchase Palm, Inc. to the tune of $1.2 billion. 

Several companies, including big-boy-in-the-market phone manufacturer HTC, took a look at Palm and passed.  The webOS PDA platform that Palm has created, while beautiful and functional in its own right, just was not enticing enough to garner a lot of suitors in the smartphone market.

Enter HP, a large well-known computer powerhouse that markets the iPaq on the Windows Mobile platform.  It has the power to do what Palm could not: provide broad financial backing to invest in the webOS platform on a variety of hardware devices.  Palm could only get so many devices out at once, relying instead on carriers’ abilities to take risks on marketing a PDA that holds such a small share of today’s smartphone market. 

At least, that’s what HP says.  “The combination of HP’s global scale and financial strength with Palm’s unparalleled webOS platform will enhance HP’s ability to participate more aggressively in the fast-growing, highly profitable smartphone and connected mobile device markets.”

Shareholders will get just under six bucks for every share of stock they’ve got in the buyout.  The purchase is slated to be completed by the end of July.

This is a big move for HP.  Having been lumped into Microsoft’s numbers all this time for market-share, having used the Windows Mobile software in the past, suddenly we have a manufacturer that owns both the hardware and the software going into it.  Palm had this in the past, but was unable to turn the capital to produce as many devices as HP can.  As the owner of a uniquely created operating system, HP will definitely be pinning its mobile success on the webOS platform. 

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