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I never understood HP's acquisition and rapid scuttling of Palm. What a waste. The Touchpad was only on the market for just over a month before being discontin

I never understood HP's acquisition and rapid scuttling of Palm. What a waste. The Touchpad was only on the market for just over a month before being discontinued. Why do that? WebOS had a lot of potential as a platform, to the extent that both Google and Apple subsequently borrowed major chunks of the UI.

agumonkey 8y ago
The most tragic and ironical sales I've ever witnessed. 99$ Firesale of touchpads made them an instant success, people were buying them at 300 or above the following monthes. I sold one years later for 90$~
repolfx 8y ago
They borrowed more than the UI. Google hired one of the chief designers of WebOS to become the chief UI designer of Android (Matthias Duarte).
- johnvanommen 8y ago
  When I worked in engineering at T-Mobile, the Danger Hiptop was the device that all the engineers loved. At the time, Duarte worked for Danger. He left Danger to go work for Helio, then Helio was acquired. He left Helio to go work for Palm, and then Palm was acquired. Oddly enough, the team that wound up doing the OS for the iPod was in the mix during this timespan also. They pitched a product to T-Mobile, but T-Mobile wound up going with a competitor. So Pixo wound up selling their wares to Apple, and the rest is history. Source: I am a former employee of T-Mobile, HP and HPE.
  - apricot 8y ago
    > Danger Hiptop (wistful sigh)
    - johnvanommen 8y ago
      It was a magical time. I wish I'd taken more pictures. I had no idea that these guys would go on to create Android and kinda change the world. At the time, I honestly thought it was all a bit silly TBH! "Why would I want to take a picture with my phone when I have a perfectly good camera?" "Why does Paris Hilton have her pictures stored on OUR servers, doesn't she know that's a security risk?" Fun fact - all those pics, from all the customers, were stored completely unencrypted. They were uuencoded for some reason, but if someone wanted to, they could've hoovered up every last file. I was working the day that Paris Hilton had her account hacked, that was not a fun day. It was looking like some heads would roll, and then it turned out the hackers exploited her account by simply guessing her password. The initial fear was that someone had penetrated the network.
dubbel 8y ago
WebOS was amazing for its time (even though the hardware was mediocre at best). I joined HP in order to fight Googles and Apples hold on the mobile OS market. Everyone can join the winning team, but I wanted to join the underdog. Then they dropped it before I even officially started. Pretty sad, even though I found other cool projects to work on, not much had the same potential to turn around the whole company imho.
mrpippy 8y ago
> The Touchpad was only on the market for just over a month before being discontinued. Why do that? Léo Apotheker.

agumonkey 8y ago

The most tragic and ironical sales I've ever witnessed. 99$ Firesale of touchpads made them an instant success, people were buying them at 300 or above the following monthes. I sold one years later for 90$~

repolfx 8y ago

They borrowed more than the UI. Google hired one of the chief designers of WebOS to become the chief UI designer of Android (Matthias Duarte).

johnvanommen 8y ago
When I worked in engineering at T-Mobile, the Danger Hiptop was the device that all the engineers loved. At the time, Duarte worked for Danger. He left Danger to go work for Helio, then Helio was acquired. He left Helio to go work for Palm, and then Palm was acquired. Oddly enough, the team that wound up doing the OS for the iPod was in the mix during this timespan also. They pitched a product to T-Mobile, but T-Mobile wound up going with a competitor. So Pixo wound up selling their wares to Apple, and the rest is history. Source: I am a former employee of T-Mobile, HP and HPE.
- apricot 8y ago
  > Danger Hiptop (wistful sigh)
  - johnvanommen 8y ago
    It was a magical time. I wish I'd taken more pictures. I had no idea that these guys would go on to create Android and kinda change the world. At the time, I honestly thought it was all a bit silly TBH! "Why would I want to take a picture with my phone when I have a perfectly good camera?" "Why does Paris Hilton have her pictures stored on OUR servers, doesn't she know that's a security risk?" Fun fact - all those pics, from all the customers, were stored completely unencrypted. They were uuencoded for some reason, but if someone wanted to, they could've hoovered up every last file. I was working the day that Paris Hilton had her account hacked, that was not a fun day. It was looking like some heads would roll, and then it turned out the hackers exploited her account by simply guessing her password. The initial fear was that someone had penetrated the network.

dubbel 8y ago

WebOS was amazing for its time (even though the hardware was mediocre at best). I joined HP in order to fight Googles and Apples hold on the mobile OS market. Everyone can join the winning team, but I wanted to join the underdog. Then they dropped it before I even officially started. Pretty sad, even though I found other cool projects to work on, not much had the same potential to turn around the whole company imho.

mrpippy 8y ago

> The Touchpad was only on the market for just over a month before being discontinued. Why do that? Léo Apotheker.