HP to Acquire Palm

[Xipe Totec]

Not LBN, since the press release went out yesterday, so here it is in Editirials & Other Articles

Source: Business Wire

PALO ALTO, Calif. & SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--HP (NYSE: HPQ) and Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ: PALM) today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which HP will purchase Palm, a provider of smartphones powered by the Palm webOS mobile operating system, at a price of $5.70 per share of Palm common stock in cash or an enterprise value of approximately $1.2 billion. The transaction has been approved by the HP and Palm boards of directors.

The combination of HP’s global scale and financial strength with Palm’s unparalleled webOS platform will enhance HP’s 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.

"Palm’s innovative operating system provides an ideal platform to expand HP’s mobility strategy and create a unique HP experience spanning multiple mobile connected devices,” said Todd Bradley, executive vice president, Personal Systems Group, HP. “And, Palm possesses significant IP assets and has a highly skilled team. The smartphone market is large, profitable and rapidly growing, and companies that can provide an integrated device and experience command a higher share. Advances in mobility are offering significant opportunities, and HP intends to be a leader in this market."


Read more: http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/permalink/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20100428006950&newsLang=en

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And some color commentary from EndGadget:

HP announcing that it's going to buy Palm in a $1.2b all-cash transaction certainly took everyone by surprise, but in many ways the deal makes perfect sense. HP is a gigantic player in the tech industry but has no appreciable presence in rapidly-growing mobile space, and Palm -- well, you should know how we feel about Palm by now. Even still, we can't say we were expecting this one, and it looks like most of you weren't either -- HP only got two percent of the vote in our "who should buy Palm" poll, while Engadget (that's us!) got... fourteen percent. Oops.

But now that we've had a day to wrap our heads around the news and think about what Palm and HP said to us last night and to analysts on the conference call announcing the deal, we think we've got a pretty good set of educated guesses on how things might shake out over the next few months. Read on!


First things first: the deal isn't official yet. Palm and HP have to jump through a number of regulatory hurdles first, including look-sees by the SEC and FTC. That process isn't expected to be completed -- at the earliest -- until HP's third fiscal quarter, which ends in July. When's all said and done, though, HP will spend a cool 1.2 billion dollars in cash to buy all of Palm's outstanding stock at $5.70 a share. Palm will then become part of HP's Personal Systems Group, led by Jon Rubinstein, who expected to stay along with most of the rest of the senior team -- HP told us there were "aggressive" retention plans in place.

What remains to be seen is how Palm's unique culture is absorbed into the massive behemoth of HP. Palm's relatively small and quirky, and although we're told Rubinstein is excited to lead Palm into this next phase, that may not be the case for its other engineers and employees. Palm's already lost some talent at the top in recent weeks, so we'll see if this bit of good news stems the tide or hastens the drain -- HP told us they're going to announce a new organization strategy as time goes on. And here's a fun throwaway question: as of right now, every Palm employee we've known from Jon Rubinstein on down is a Mac user. Are they all going to switch to Envy 15s now, or what? It's silly, but it's also a significant cultural difference the two companies will have to resolve.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/29/hp-and-palm-what-happens-next

[fishwax]

1. I read that as HP acquires Palin

and thought :wtf:

:)

[Xipe Totec]

2. No, the other palm

:evilgrin:

[JuniperLea]

3. Ooooohhhh... I thought you meant THIS palm!

[Xipe Totec]

4. ROFL!

:rofl:

[ccinamon]

5. 2 mediocre companies joining forces...

they each used to have good quality products...the last few years of greed over quality has put both of them in the "never again" list of companies.

[Xipe Totec]

6. Spoken like an Applelite

I guess you have forgotten how close to bankruptcy Apple came, and that it was Microsoft that rescued it from the dustbin of history.