HP CEO: “We didn’t buy Palm to be in the smartphone business”
Michael Oryl, MobileBurn, 6/3/2010 
According to ZDNet, HP CEO Mark Hurd discussed some of his thoughts on his company’s acquisition of Palm while speaking at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch technology event. ZDNet quotes Hurd as saying that HP didn’t “spend billions of dollars trying to go into the smartphone business; that doesn’t in any way make any sense.”, and then offered the following:
“We didn’t buy Palm to be in the smartphone business. And I tell people that, but it doesn’t seem to resonate well. We bought it for the IP. The webOS is one of the two ground-up pieces of software that is built as a web operating environment…We have tens of millions of HP small form factor web-connected devices…Now imagine that being a web-connected environment where now you can get a common look and feel and a common set of services laid against that environment. That is a very value proposition.”
This does not mean, of course, that HP will not sell smartphones running the Palm webOS. For one thing, HP is already in the smartphone business, selling devices based on the Microsoft Windows Mobile smartphone OS that are targeted at enterprise customers. It is true, however, that most seem to have interpreted HP’s purchase of Palm as a move into the consumer smartphone space, something it currently has no presence in.
In our opinion, the webOS is far better suited to devices like smartphones and tablets than it is to printers, but HP may surprise us some day.
Related posts:
- Why webOS is a Challenge to iOS and Android in the Business World Alex Williams, ReadWriteWeb, 6/7/20111 webOS is the heart of how HP will compete against far more established competitors in the...
- Palm: ‘we don’t know what the hold-up is’ on mobile Flash Electronista Staff, Electronista, 6/18/2010 Palm hints Adobe not close to Flash on webOS Adobe hasn’t given any signs that it’s...
- Palm releases Mojo application SDK for webOS and Pre Brian James Kirk, MobileBurn, 7/20/2009 Palm has released its much anticipated Mojo Software Development Kit to developers who plan on...
In: Mobile Technology, Palm (HP), WinPhone · Tagged with: HP
on June 3, 2010 at 8:55 pm
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HP CEO: "We didn't buy Palm to be in the smartphone business" http://is.gd/cBsDP