Hewlett Packard (HP) have announced that they will be purchasing smartphone manufacturer Palm. Palm has been experiencing severe capital losses in the last 6 months as users have not bought their phones in large numbers, as projected by the company. HP has been on a company acquisition spree as they recently acquired 3Com, a networking giant.
I think that HP is realizing that the computer industry is shifting toward the mobile phone business. Think about it, in the last 5 years the biggest area that has shown significant growth from an innovation point of view is the mobile phone industry. Apple, BlackBerry and even Nokia have significantly improved their products worldwide as the global village becomes a reality.
The Palm deal in my mind is about intellectual property that the Palm group owns through their development of webOS. The webOS software is the proprietary software found on all Palm mobile phones. Do not be surprised when the much anticipated HP Slate tablet features the webOS operating system.
HP says that “The combination of HP’s global scale and financial strength with Palm’s unparalleled webOS platform will enhance HPs ability to participate more aggressively in the fast-growing, highly profitable smartphone and connected mobile device markets. Palm’s unique webOS will allow HP to take advantage of features such as true multitasking and always up-to-date information sharing across applications.”
The biggest loser in this deal might be Microsoft, who have supplied HP with software for their PDA’s. The clear fact of this acquisition is HP will be offering products in markets that they have not significantly featured in.
