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HP Buying Palm For $1.2 Billion

finance.yahoo.com

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Re: HP Buying Palm For $1.2 Billion

#91

Post by potatolicious »

mixmax wrote: post #67
megaduck wrote: post #46

HP's getting a hell of a deal here. They're now a major player in the mobile devices market, overnight. Palm has current relationships with the three biggest American cell carriers, plus channels in Canada, France, Germany, UK, and Mexico. Palm also has an extensive patent portfolio, many of which Apple is infringing upon. However, the real prize is WebOS. I just got back from Palm's Developer Day, and their technolo…

"This deal (...) gives HP all the things they need to go head-to-head with Apple." Except for the one thing that makes apple products special: Design.

I've used the Pre (I have an iPhone) - it is incredibly solidly designed. Its main problems are twofold:

- It's slow. Really slow. If they can get a 2-3x performance improvement overall throughout webOS, they can actually compete with Apple. So far it's just not snappy enough to be a pleasant experience.

- The marketing sucked. Seriously, what the hell. It's almost as if they went out of the way to convince you to not buy this device.

Re: HP Buying Palm For $1.2 Billion

#92

Post by jmtulloss »

dnsworks wrote: post #63
simonsquiff wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would take them how long? Buying Palm they get that now.

Probably a lot quicker than it will take to save the sinking ship that is Palm. Sure this is a market penetration play, but why? Palm was a failure. PalmOS was a failure. WebOS might be cool, but the damage is done. Google is making good penetration into the mobile market, and they didn't need to buy grandpa to do so.

PalmOS was hardly a failure. It was far and away the most popular mobile OS for the better part of a decade.

Re: HP Buying Palm For $1.2 Billion

#93

Post by dwwoelfel »

I don't think that HP has a clear purpose for making this purchase. They held a conference call on the acquisition, which is available on their webpage, along with a transcript:

http://www.hp.com/investor/webcast

The first questioner wanted to know why HP didn't just build Android devices. HP didn't have a compelling response. They just mumbled something about "early stage market" and making webOS "more compelling". Oddly, HP then mentioned that they are still a strategic partner with Microsoft.

Re: HP Buying Palm For $1.2 Billion

#94

Post by mikecane »

All of you developers, does this excite you as a potential development platform now? Watching past Palm/webOS postings here not gain any traction made me wonder why. Was it the dismal outlook? Was there something wrong with the dev suite Palm offered? Does the hp acquisition change all that for you?

Re: HP Buying Palm For $1.2 Billion

#95

Post by dnsworks »

azim wrote: post #88
dnsworks wrote: post #54

I have to think that HP could just throw $100m at the problem and build an embedded OS that's far better than Palm, without having to take on the assets of a long-since failed corporation.

Been there, done that, and HP is not capable of developing a product from the ground up that will be competitive in the marketplace. For them the best option is definitely to buy. I hate to say it, but they're a company that's out of innovation and out of talent.

Procurve? Proliant (otherwise known as the best value enterprise servers on the market) Let's not forget their various diagnostics tools and imaging products. Printers? Cameras? Calculators? The incredible solutions from EYP for building efficient datacenters, including their containerized solutions? Openview (Sure nobody ever used it, but a lot of companies pay a hell of a lot of money for it)

But you're right, HP is incapable of building anything that is competitive in the marketplace.

Maybe they're incapable of building a cellphone that doesn't make phone calls, or of putting out silly little web products, but HP is massive, and has built some incredible network and server hardware.

Re: HP Buying Palm For $1.2 Billion

#96

Post by aschobel »

armandososa wrote: post #61
aschobel wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Best" in what sense? Android's life-cycle and Bundles makes a developer think about saving app state information from day one. Something as simple as a configuration change, rotating orientation, recreates your Activity. Since creating and destroying your activity is such a common occurrence you are forced to save the state info. When the OS needs to kill a background activity to free up space it tends to work. Real…

I think it's "Best" interface-wise. The cards metaphor is awesome.

It's a fabulous metaphor, but "Can't open any more Cards" really detracts from it.

Palm may have nailed the UX, but Android nailed the engineering.

Re: HP Buying Palm For $1.2 Billion

#97

Post by CWuestefeld »

zain wrote: post #44
CWuestefeld wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HP's not the sort of company that can enter a new market like this and turn it on its ear This isn't a new market for HP. They've been a leader in the PocketPC space for years, with their Axim line, and Compaq's Ipaq link (no, Apple didn't invent the "i" thing). I wonder now what's to become of the Ipaqs. I assume that the Windows Mobile based devices will simply be phased out.

The Axim was from Dell, not HP. The iPaq was created by Compaq and taken over by HP in their acquisition.

+1 for you on the Dell thing; my mistake. But my point still stands on the ipaq thing.

Re: HP Buying Palm For $1.2 Billion

#98

Post by vl »

tewks wrote: post #52
megaduck wrote: post #46

HP's getting a hell of a deal here. They're now a major player in the mobile devices market, overnight. Palm has current relationships with the three biggest American cell carriers, plus channels in Canada, France, Germany, UK, and Mexico. Palm also has an extensive patent portfolio, many of which Apple is infringing upon. However, the real prize is WebOS. I just got back from Palm's Developer Day, and their technolo…

I laughed because they were also a major player in the mobile devices market upon the acquisition of Compaq. Remember the iPaq? They were solid devices at the time and sold well. Granted, your emphasis on WebOS is correct. That time, they didn't get control of an OS. Microsoft let WinCE stagnate to some degree over the next few years. We'll see how HP does this time around.

Even before iPaq HP had it's own Jornada.

Re: HP Buying Palm For $1.2 Billion

#99

Post by danudey »

mace wrote: post #85
megaduck wrote: post #46

HP's getting a hell of a deal here. They're now a major player in the mobile devices market, overnight. Palm has current relationships with the three biggest American cell carriers, plus channels in Canada, France, Germany, UK, and Mexico. Palm also has an extensive patent portfolio, many of which Apple is infringing upon. However, the real prize is WebOS. I just got back from Palm's Developer Day, and their technolo…

I'm hopeful, but I'm expecting the worst. webOS seems to be a compelling technology, particularly because its SDK allows developers to use HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript which many more developers know and use than say Objective-C. The reason I'm expecting the worst is that HP has never been a software company and not even Palm can change that.

If HP keeps the WebOS team as a separate entity (without cramming new management, coding practices, etc. down their throats) they'll win. If they screw it up, they'll have wasted half a billion dollars.

Re: HP Buying Palm For $1.2 Billion

#100

Post by bitwize »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #15
evo_9 wrote: post #12

This is very surprising. I'd speculated that Sony or RIM would consider buying them once HTC fell out of favor. Sony seemed to be a good fit from a capacity to deliver a high quality product, plus they have ability, much like Apple, to sell stuff at a premium. RIM seemed less likely but given their need for a new phone OS, it seemed like a pretty easy fit. Corporate culture might have been a factor against them doing…

HP's not the sort of company that can enter a new market like this and turn it on its ear This isn't a new market for HP. They've been a leader in the PocketPC space for years, with their Axim line, and Compaq's Ipaq link (no, Apple didn't invent the "i" thing). I wonder now what's to become of the Ipaqs. I assume that the Windows Mobile based devices will simply be phased out.

iPaq was originally intended as a brand for an iMac-clone PC marketed by Compaq.

So, yes, Apple did invent the "i" thing for consumer electronics.

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