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HP Buying Palm For $1.2 Billion
- superk 16y agoClassic HP move...first to follow last.
- sanj 16y agoFor years I've loved HP's printers but found the drivers to be a complete mess. I've been left with the sense that they have a incredibly solid hardware/firmware group, but the rest of their software was incredibly poorly designed: that they really didn't understand software at all. Is there a compelling reason to believe that HP won't make a mess of the software in WebOS?
- shiftb 16y agoWow. I just bought a Pre a month ago. At least they'll continue to be a going concern (and able to provide me with support ;) I was hoping Palm would be able to make it independently somehow, though. This would be an awesome thing if WebOS ended up on the HP Slate.
- maukdaddy 16y agoUGH poor Palm employees. I am so sorry.
- sachinag 16y agoReally? They should be grateful that they look to still have jobs. If Apple or Microsoft or Google bought them, a bunch of them would have been laid off.
- rubinelli 16y agoHP cut deep when it acquired EDS, from top management all the way down to the trenches. I don't think they will leave much besides (parts of) R&D this time.
- izendejas 16y agoThat's because there was lots of overlap w/ EDS. They already had their own services division, a pretty big one at that, so they had to cut out the redundancies. Not the case with Palm. HP doesn't have many software developers, and much less for mobile platforms.
- krupan 16y agoHP's recent track record of purchase and lay-off has to be at least as good (bad?) as those three. And actually, having recently worked there and having kept in touch former co-workers, getting laid off from HP with some severance isn't so bad, compared to the alternatives.
- brianobush 16y agoI am sure for many this is a welcomed event. Imagine if you had options, stock? This would be a nice payday in addition to having a job with a company with deep pockets (and some agenda).
- mrkurt 16y agoI'm just going to stick my fingers in my ears and pretend that HTC is buying them.
- hackernews 16y agoI think this is better. HTC is vetted in hardware, I'm not sure they would care for WebOS as HP hopefully will.
- dagw 16y agoI'm sure that if HP asks nicely, HTC would be more than happy to build them some HP branded WebOS phones.
- ziadbc 16y agoNot sure what the industry analysis of this will be, but I like the idea of HP having its own platform to present to the world. It reminds me of the 80s where the was lots of diversity in the platforms. The good news here is WebOS apps are mostly built on web standards so we have the best of both worlds.
- minouye 16y agoSo Palm = Groupon? http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/13/groupon-raises-huge-new-round-at-1-2-billion-valuation/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/13/groupon-raises-huge-new-rou...
- ziadbc 16y agoWell, Palm is a publicly traded company. Their valuation is fairly objective. HP actually paying more than the market cap of 784 M. http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=palm&d=t http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=palm&d=t Groupon doesn't have that litmus test, and valuations and cash money are two different things.
- dschobel 16y agoActually paying $1.2B in cash and stock is different than an investment of arbitrary size with a $1.2B valuation. Think of it more as, the perceived value way way way down the road of groupon == palm's value as of an hour ago.
- TotlolRon 16y agoAn apple and orange may sell at some day at some market to some buyer for roughly the same price. Doesn't make apple == orange.
- armandososa 16y agoThat's a very good insight.
- raheemm 16y agoThe Palm Pre is going to have a fighting chance now. Its a great phone.
- gregstoll 16y agoVery good news for WebOS since HP doesn't have their own competing mobile OS.
- lallysingh 16y agoWeren't they the last major Windows Mobile player? This sounds like the last nail in WM's coffin.
- sueders100 16y agoHTC makes Windows Mobile/Phone devices. They just recently came out with the HD2 in the US.
- kylec 16y agoI had hoped that HTC would discontinue making new Windows Mobile devices after Microsoft told them that Android stepped on their patents. Instead HTC is now 'licensing' these patents from MS. Still, it would have been funny if there were no major manufacturers for Windows Mobile. http://www.androidcentral.com/htc-pay-royalties-microsoft-after-being-told-android-steps-its-patents http://www.androidcentral.com/htc-pay-royalties-microsoft-af...
- maxharris 16y agoWell, this is great. I love my Apple gear, and I'm going to stay that way as long as they keep making well-designed (minimalistic externally) stuff. But with the Palm acquisition, HP will be able to do just what Apple is doing. And that's great - integration between software and hardware makes my life (as a user) so much easier. The main question I have is: will they have any taste? The HP slate has a big white HP logo on the user-facing side, which will keep me from buying one no matter what else it might do. (I don't want to be distracted when I'm using a tablet.)
- aero142 16y agoIt's funny, even though Apple has resisted messing up the hardware, there is still that "Sent from my iPhone" message which always struck me as having no taste at all. It is different because you can remove it, but still.
- maxharris 16y agoTrue! I hate that bleepin' message. (I didn't know you could delete it.)
- aero142 16y agoYeah, it's the default email signature for iPhone and many others and you can change it under Settings->Mail, Contacts-> Signature. I'm not sure who added it first, but I find it obnoxious regardless of what company does it.
- nitrogen 16y agoI believe the "Sent from my Blackberry" message was responsible for a large part of Blackberry's success, so it makes sense that Apple would want to do the same. It's a lot less obnoxious than the advertisement footers Hotmail adds. Still, I'd change it right away if I had an iPhone.
- mos1 16y agoI view 'Sent from my BlackBerry / iPhone' as a way of explaining why the email is so short.
- joshu 16y agoI'm an idiot. I've been mulling buying some PALM for a while.
- eekfuh 16y agoBy awhile, I hope you mean less than a month, since they've been in a downward spiral and a month ago were above the $5.70 asking price. 2 months ago they were at $8 and 6 months ago they were at $16 per share. It was a good thing you didn't buy it (unless you purchased December 2008).
- joshu 16y agoI'd been thinking about it a little over a month, yeah.
- batiudrami 16y agoI misread it and thought he meant he was considering buying the entire company and was disappointed that HP beat him to it.
- evo_9 16y agoThis 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 this deal, hard to say. HP's not the sort of company that can enter a new market like this and turn it on its ear, but maybe I'm wrong. They did have the foresight to buy DEC Alpha, which seemed like a great fit, but then they did nothing with it. Here's hoping for the best.
- CWuestefeld 16y agoHP'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.
- megablast 16y agoReplace Axim with Jornada.
- evo_9 16y agoI didn't mean to imply this was a new market for HP. I meant that they haven't historically torn up a new market the way say Sony has in the past. Bringing webOS to a Slate device actually makes a lot of sense; I hadn't considered that and honestly that might be the real reason they pulled the trigger.
- zain 16y agoThe Axim was from Dell, not HP. The iPaq was created by Compaq and taken over by HP in their acquisition.
- CWuestefeld 16y ago
- faramarz 16y agoWow, that just came out of no where. Did anyone really think of HP as a serious contender? great move! Elevation Partners must be trilled!
- steveplace 16y agoPALM's been looking for a buyer for a few weeks now, but I didn't expect HP.
- sachinag 16y agoIt's a save, not a single, but yeah: http://twitter.com/danprimack/status/13026332506 http://twitter.com/danprimack/status/13026332506
- faramarz 16y agoA big save. I think they just wanted their money back :P
- paulgb 16y agoCould you (or someone else) please explain what "single" and "save" mean in this context?
- sachinag 16y agoSingle: 1x return (100% ROI), confusingly 2x back on what was invested. This means a triple is a 300% return, or 4x back what was invested. A home run is a 400% return or better, or 5x back what was invested. Along those lines, Save: money back = money invested
- eekfuh 16y agoIn September 2009, Palm did a public offering to help payback a large portion of that money to Elevation Partners. http://investor.palm.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=369812 http://investor.palm.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=369812 EDIT: Ouch, looks like they paid $9 per share initially. http://investor.palm.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=246860 http://investor.palm.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=246860
- mcantelon 16y agoHopefully this won't mess with the webOS mojo. Palms seems to be doing some pretty interesting stuff these days.
- jxcole 16y ago"Palm’s unparalleled webOS platform" Question: is Palm's web os platform really unparalleled? Or is it quickly falling behind the race that is now dominated by iPhone and android?
- mrkurt 16y agoIt still curb stomps iPhone OS and Android in a number of ways. The card based interface and notifications are unparalleled (IMO).
- cookiecaper 16y agowebOS was definitely the most promising of the platforms imo. It never saw much adoption because the political approval/development process at Palm was horrible even if you tried really hard to get your apps on it (see jwz) and it was only available on the one not-very-popular phone. I'm happy to see someone who might do something decent with webOS take over.
- locopati 16y agoafaik webos has the best multi-tasking system out there and the easiest entry point (since it's just js, css & html)
- megablast 16y agoI would not say it is easy to get into. When I first tried creating an app using the SDK when it first came out, there was no good debugging, lots of things going wrong for me with no way to see what the problem was. Uncomparable to Xcode environment.
- aschobel 16y ago"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. Really good YouTube video explaining this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fL6gSd4ugSI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fL6gSd4ugSI
- thought_alarm 16y agoMan, that is a big pile of cash. It hardly seems worth it, but if HP wanted to be a player in the mobile space now they are. But Palm has a (very long and storied) software problem, not a hardware problem. HP doesn't have much of a reputation in consumer-grade OS software development so I'm not sure how they will be able succeed where Palm failed.
- ashishbharthi 16y agoSoftware problem? Though Palm Pre and Pixi didnt sell as expected, Palm's WebOS has received pretty decent feedback from all over.
- thought_alarm 16y agoThey spent an eternity trying to develop a successor to the old Palm OS, then they abruptly threw it all away and created WebOS by sticking WebKit on top of a Linux kernel. As a result, WebOS has been plagued with performance and reliability problems that they're still trying to address, and that shouldn't surprise anyone familiar with system software development. They've also had a lot of trouble getting 3rd-party development off the ground.
- Tichy 16y agoWow, amazed that it is worth 1.2 Billion. Not that I dislike Palm, but I suspect for 1 Billion, you could write several WebOS from scratch.
- cullenking 16y agoBut, they are buying the name and existing customers of Palm. Don't forget that the acquisition will also give HP access to Palm's patent portfolio...This is especially important now that we have seen Android targeted by MS for "patent infringement". If HP/Palm have a good device, a good OS and patents to keep the competition from pushing too hard, then they have a chance.
- mahmud 16y agoBy the time you're done writing and testing a new webOS, the market would have changed and the serious contenders established. Right now it's still up for grabs.
- Tichy 16y agoThe market of non-Appe users, that is? :-) OK, but if time is of a premium, why not just use Android, as it's free? Or build on top of Android?
- joubert 16y agoTime is worth a lot of money
- glhaynes 16y agoSo, Pre hardware running VMS, then? I like it...
- megaduck 16y agoHP'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 technology stack for their next OS version is pretty damn neat. It's a high performance event-driven javascript architecture on the back end, with WebKit on the front, all programmed through a Rails-ish MVC model. As a web developer, it looks shockingly easy to program for. Of course, if you want to program the phone in raw C/C++ and SDL, you can do that too. It's incredibly flexible. What Palm has been lacking is cash and time. The WebOS development stack won't be fully built out until Fall, and they haven't had the resources to push new phone models out as quickly as they need. This deal gives Palm much needed juice, and gives HP all the things they need to go head-to-head with Apple. If HP is smart, they'll start tossing WebOS on tablets as soon as they can. I'd buy an HP slate with WebOS in a heartbeat.
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- tewks 16y agoI 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.
- vl 16y agoEven before iPaq HP had it's own Jornada.
- dwwoelfel 16y agoAccording to the press release, Palm shareholders get $5.70/share. The stock is above $5.90/share in after-hours trading. Is there some reason for this? Is this an arbitrage opportunity (assuming you could get shares to borrow)?
- jakarta 16y agoGot to keep in mind that a lot of short sellers will be covering, which could account for some of the premium.
- dnsworks 16y agoI 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.
- simonsquiff 16y agoThat would take them how long? Buying Palm they get that now.
- dnsworks 16y agoProbably 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.
- mortenjorck 16y agoSeen in those terms, and given the speed at which mobile is developing right now, this is worth way more than $100m. Think of it as $100m for a great mobile OS and $1.1billion for a time machine.
- antirez 16y agoYep but something really interesting can happen in the process of creating something new. Buying a company that was not able to provide great things for a log time is not exactly exciting IMHO.
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- mortenjorck 16y agoDear HP: Please don't mess this up. You're a storied pioneer in tech, but you got massive and lost your sense of direction. You're about to acquire something of a microcosm of yourself—a company that pioneered an industry but lost its way as it grew. The difference is that your new acquisition rediscovered its sense of curiosity and turned itself around, too late to save itself, but brilliantly so nonetheless. You can learn from this. Your size has protected you from Palm's fate, but you were slowly headed down the same path, despite even your well-intentioned yet insufficiently-pursued experiments with things like TouchSmart. While this is a new beginning for Palm, it's also a new beginning for you. What's your tagline again? Ah, yes: Invent. There's never been a better time to make good on it.
- megablast 16y agoHP is now run by business men, not engineers. If Carla didn't prove this to you, then you are probably never going to get it. The fact is, they don't care about Compaq, DEC, Palm, or even HP. They just want to pull in enough money over the next few years, until they retire. They could be selling Paper cups for all they care about the product, as long as they still get their bonuses.
- cookiecaper 16y agoI don't know if that's really true. Most businesspeople are not just interested in milking salaries. Like most other people, they want to do a good job at the job they've been assigned. Unless you have personal knowledge of the execs at HP, I wouldn't go so far; such a claim is rather personal and depends on a lot of individual factors and I don't think it can really be made en masse about a whole exec team. Also, there is financial incentive to set the company on an innovative, profit-filled future; many (most?) executives hold lots and lots of stock.
- astine 16y ago"many (most?) executives hold lots and lots of stock." All, probably.
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- RyanMcGreal 16y agoCan't be worse than buying Compaq.
- MWinther 16y agoI hope HP gets WebOS to be a big enough player to mean great things for innovation in the mobile device space going forward. Gotta love competition as a consumer!
- samratjp 16y ago<joke>I guess HP figured out that when print media dies, it can't sell as many cartridges and figured it would tow along a sinking boat to its tanker ship. </joke> Whatever the case may be, HP needs to put blinders on Palm. Palm needs to ultra focus on one good phone. How did they forget that they used to focus so well on the Treos that Blackberry seemed pale in comparison.
- dwwoelfel 16y agoI 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 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.
- mikecane 16y agoAll 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?
- elai 16y agoLack of an app market and developer tool immaturity (incomplete documentation, private methods for complete implementation, non-obvious debugging, etc)
- mikecane 16y agoThanks for letting me know. Since there hasn't been much buzz about developing for webOS, I never heard details of whether it's actually any good. I hope hp will fix all that.
- apinstein 16y agoI can't imagine this going well for HP or Palm. Palm has already been passed around 5+ times and it just gets chewed up by bureaucracy worse and worse each time. HP also doesn't really have a strong history of stylish consumer electronics, particularly in the non-business market, which is frankly what the mobile market is all about. It's all about hearts & minds. With Apple and Android clearly the top players, and Microsoft always being a long-term contender, I don't see how there's any room left in the marketplace for another major player.