8 ms·
Amazon in talks with HP to buy Palm
- rkalla 15y agoWe saw the launch of the Kindle Fire and have seen Amazon's hand with the custom build of Android that looks/feels nothing like Android... anyone have any guesses why they would want WebOS? Amazon already has the Android store, all the Android integration done for the Fire and the Java/Android expertise in house... where does WebOS fit in?
- ary 15y agoUser interface design perhaps? Although my impression is that all that talent already bailed on HP.
- sksultan 15y agoa) HP's probably offering it for pennies. Too good of a deal for any tablet/mobile player. b) Amazon Silk is a game changer that probably has Google fuming. Buying Palm is probably a hedge bet in case Google clamps down. The end-user platform(devise, OS, browser) war between Google, Apple, and MS is to control the user data. Amazon wants to make sure it has an unrestricted piece of that data.
- rkalla 15y agoInteresting take on it being a preemptive move. I wouldn't have seen that kind of competitive advantage in owning Palm... again, since it doesn't look to be a talent acquisitions and it isn't for patents (?) then the only thing left is WebOS, in which case what do these guys want with a incompatible clean-room OS? Google already has too many mobile OS's and Amazon's expertise is elsewhere. I feel like I'm missing some core component of Palm here that makes it valuable to even still be talked about. Had they had some amazing version of Android with a custom browser and all that, I'd understand this a lot more quickly.
- pyrmont 15y agoAmazon is just about to start encouraging people to buy Android applications for the Amazon App Store that presumably wouldn't work on a webOS tablet. If Amazon are in the running, it can only be for the patent portfolio. If Google were to clamp down on Android, why wouldn't Amazon just continue developing their Android fork? Seems like it would be a lot more effort to get webOS to where they need it to be.
- mappu 15y agoI don't know if Silk has Google "fuming".. Opera Mini has been doing the remote-rendering thing for years and years now. It is the most widely used mobile browser, with 113+ million users and 2+ billion daily pageviews.
- alttag 15y ago> [Opera] is the most widely used mobile browser Use appears to be mostly from Asia. In Europe, iPhone leads by a wide margin, followed by Android; in North America, Android leads, followed by iPhone [2]. Opera makes at best a fourth place showing on these continents. To your point about "fuming", I think you're right. There's no evidence that Google's analytics or search (advertising) products will be negatively impacted by silk. 1: http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_browser-eu-monthly-201009-201108 http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_browser-eu-monthly-201009-... 2: http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_browser-na-monthly-201009-201108 http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_browser-na-monthly-201009-...
- nazar 15y agoI can narrow down Asia to Post Soviet asian countries such as Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan etc. Internet is normally overpriced in these countries and opera mini has nice compression features and dedicated "turn off images" button, which is very handy. And not everyone here can afford high end iOS/android devices, so for Symbian, Opera mini is the best choice.
- potatolicious 15y agoDoes it have to be the webOS division? I'd imagine Amazon wouldn't have that much interest in Palm's software, but Palm is also one of the few entities in North America that has experience designing hardware from end to end. We know that Amazon had to outsource the design and build of the Fire to an outsider, no doubt it would be preferable to bring that in-house to a team of world class industrial designers.
- knotty66 15y agoThe hardware was the weakest link. Also, It was my understanding that a lot of the hardware division have been released recently. Maybe Amazon just want some patents, some good engineers and a backup OS for leverage against Google?
- r00fus 15y agoThe patents alone would be worth it to Amazon... who likely have no really interesting mobile hardware or software patents of their own. Interesting note about Ruby's being on the Amazon board too, didn't notice that earlier.
- fpgeek 15y agoTo me the detail that doesn't ring true is that HP would sell Palm at a substantial loss. Last I heard, people thought HP could at least recoup the purchase price (or more) based on the "value" of Palm's patents alone. I suppose HP could be selling Palm with only patent licenses (instead of the patents themselves), but that seems like a strange thing to do on both sides. If HP were being clever, I could see them leaking their discussions with Amazon right now (when Amazon is on everyone's mind) as a way to motivate the "real" buyer (presumably Google or Apple). But I don't give HP credit for being that clever.
- michaelpinto 15y agoI first misread that as "Amazon in talks to buy HP" and what's funny is that it didn't shock me. On the other hand if they only got Palm that would be great for IP.
- daeken 15y agoPlease do, then sell Be off to someone that will do something with it. Please?
- kylec 15y agoBe went with PalmSource back when Palm was split into PalmOne and PalmSource. PalmOne then re-became Palm and was acquired by HP, but PalmSource was picked up by ACCESS.
- daeken 15y agoWow, I had no idea how that all went down. Thanks for the info.
- protomyth 15y agoThe Haiku Project http://haiku-os.org/ http://haiku-os.org/ is getting rather close.
- Apocryphon 15y agoI hope that whomever HP sells Palm off to will bring back the brand.
- elithrar 15y ago> I hope that whomever HP sells Palm off to will bring back the brand. I think the Palm brand is "too far gone" in the public mindset to be worth bringing back. The Amazon brand is a far stronger, far more popular brand and its important that they don't dilute that right as they launch the Fire. Acquiring Palm, to me, would be so they can acquire patents, some developers and designers, and some tech. WebOS, nice as it is, has missed the train. Amazon would be insane to backflip now (even I wish they'd used WebOS to begin with).
- markokocic 15y agoI would like that to happen. I was never a fan of Palm products, but WebOS seems like a nice alternative OS for mobiles and tablets. I'm sure Amazon would know how to handle it better than HP.
- modeless 15y agoWhat would Amazon do with WebOS when they have already invested so much in Android? Switching would require them to abandon the app store they built. The Silk browser seems at odds with how WebOS works. All their Android UI customizations would have to be rewritten.
- avree 15y agoAmazon has shown that they're open to pivots and trying new things before. I wouldn't be surprised if they made two different lines of Kindles, with different OS's. They are trying to achieve market dominance with the Amazon App Store—with WebOS they could truly achieve market dominance since they'd be the main source of apps.
- eurleif 15y agoBut the Kindle Fire is supposed to be an appliance. It's supposed to Just Work. Adding a second tablet with a different OS would confuse Amazon's target audience.
- joelhaasnoot 15y agoSo where are there 5 different Kindle products?
- jkap 15y agoIt's still very clear what you're getting with each Kindle product. Kindle DX has a massive screen, Kindle Keyboard has a keyboard, Kindle Touch has a touch screen, Kindle has buttons, Kindle Fire is a tablet. And then there's the 3G and Wi-Fi splits, but that's also an obvious feature.
- coob 15y ago…try explaining this to my mother.
- j_col 15y agoAs a long-suffering webOS fan (Pre- through to Pre3 & Touchpad), all I have to say to this news is, yay! WebOS is a fantastic system that does not deserve to linger and die due to HP's lack of leadership and vision. Jeff Bezzos, on the other hand, is a true visionary in my opinion and I would be happy to see my webOS HP Profile become an Amazon profile sometime soon. My only doubt though: will they make phones?
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- zitterbewegung 15y agoI don't think they will make phones or even continue webOS. I have a feeling that this is a talent acquisition and they will use it to improve the Kindle Fire.
- j_col 15y agoConsidering they already fired all of the hardware people, most of the talent have already gone (unless you mean't software, and it that case webOS is a pretty different system to Android, so it's not like Amazon would be picking up a few hundred Android developers here).
- firefoxman1 15y agoWell most of Palm's hardware in recent years sucked anyway. WebOS is where the talent went in. Even if it was a talent acquisition, I think WebOS has a better chance of at least being open-sourced if it's owned by Amazon than if it was stuck with HP.
- technoslut 15y agoThey will undoubtedly make phones. Why give away a market to competitors that is worth billions? Amazon wants to keep users in their ecosystem. To do that you need a phone as well, which they're essentially already doing in their AppStore. Within three years Amazon will come out with their own phone. It will be the same game plan that they used with the Fire and gear it towards the low end. Eventually they will go towards the high end.
- iradik 15y agoThis sounds like a large talent acquisition.
- MichaelApproved 15y agoWith Fire, Amazon essentially has an independent OS. The only reason to by Palm would be that Google will not protect you as an Android maker and you need your own patent portfolio to defend yourself.
- nodata 15y agoDidn't Amazon work with Google to create the Fire?
- octover 15y agoNo, they didn't. The biggest sign you can see out in the open is that the Fire is running a fork of 2.3 Gingerbread instead of 3.0 Honeycomb or the upcoming Ice Cream Sandwich.
- nodata 15y agoOh yes, from looking at them essentially forking it, it looks like they didn't work together. But my question was whether or not they _did_ work together, one of the tech sites wrote that they did. I will try and find the reference.
- RexRollman 15y agoI seem to remember that as well but I have no reference for it.
- w33ble 15y agoThey actually forked earlier than that. Everything I've read has said the forked 2.1, which means Amazon has been developing the Fire for some time now, with impressive secrecy to boot.
- Zakuzaa 15y agoProbably for talent and patents acquisition.
- spinchange 15y agoIt's the patents.
- iand 15y agoThe only way I can see this making sense is if Amazon could buy the supply chain relationships that HP must have built for their tablets. Probably HP have options/exclusivity deals on display and chip production for the coming years.
- suivix 15y agoOff-topic, but is there a reason you say 'HP have' instead of 'HP has'? I was talking to a few British guys at work about this and they thought it sounded odd as well.
- alexholehouse 15y agoIf we're referring to HP as a single company it should be has ( - it has ...) If we're referring to HP as a collective of things (i.e. individuals, such as the board) then it should be have ( - they have ....) IMO I'd say it could be either really, though I would probably favour the singular.
- wycats 15y agoThis is one of those US/UK differences. In the US, we usually refer to companies or groups (like sports teams) as singular. In the UK, companies have been historically referred to as plural. Since the parent uses the British spelling 'favour', but feels the singular form is correct, I wonder if that's changing.
- karzeem 15y ago"HP have" is British, "HP has" is American.
- iand 15y agoHeh, I don't know :) I'm British if it helps...
- frankiewarren 15y agoCould this have anything to do with the licensing fees that are becoming a reality with the Android ecosystem? It might be an incentive to bring things in house in the future (both hardware and software).
- alexknight 15y agoEven if this is true and it does happen, I would think Palm as a brand is dead. Even if the Fire 2 ends up having webOS, Amazon would never market it that way. Just as how Android is behind the scenes on the current Fire, they would do the same with webOS.
- DotNetPete1 15y agogreat news