Yes I suppose I should have said a "consumer software company" to be more clear. There's a world of difference between enterprise/support software and consumer

Yes I suppose I should have said a "consumer software company" to be more clear. There's a world of difference between enterprise/support software and consumer oriented SmartPhone platforms. Still I'm sure HP could have managed it in-house but they're working on a 4-5 year deficit of time compared to Apple and Google. $1B to catch-up overnight is not a bad deal at all. Either way they probably would have needed to pull in outside resources. I can't imagine the OpenView guys writing a SmartPhone media player or e-mail application.