Why the death of Palm makes sense for HP
Today, HP and Palm announced the availability of three new devices. In a somewhat unexpected move, however, HP decided to kill off the Palm name and use webOS and the hardware that used to belong to Palm as its own.
A lot of people were shocked, but in reality, this makes a lot of business sense. HP is an incredibly well known brand worldwide, and they've been really late to the smartphone and tablet game.
Let's take a look at how these new devices should be better performers than Palm's old hardware, and how HP will breathe new life into its newly named HP webOS.
After Palm announced the Pre, people were starting to take notice of the company again. But by the time the iPhone 3GS came out, a lot of the Pre's thunder was stolen. And then there was the fact that Palm itself was struggling, and during that time, it didn't release any new devices for consumers. Even the ones it had out were terribly underpowered and webOS' development was left in the dust.
Fast forward to April 28, 2010, when HP announced the purchase of Palm. People back then were even skeptical of Palm's continuance. As Palm's "reconstruction" from HP went on over the summer, another year went by of Palm's habit of not releasing any new devices.
Today, we were greeted with the Pre 3, the Veer, and the TouchPad. All of these run HP's webOS. Looking to the back of each device, you will no longer see Palm print; HP logos are it. Heck, even the homescreens of these devices say "HP webOS" on the top of the screen.
But how does this help HP out?
Well, HP is currently the market leader in the desktop and laptop market. They're really good at what they do, and people know it. When the average consumer walks into a carrier's store and sees HP instead of Palm, they will instantly know that they're getting something of quality. Not to say that Palm didn't produce quality products, because they did, but more people know about HP than they did about Palm.
In my opinion, this should help webOS become a major player in the smartphone world again. It's sad to see that it had fallen down, but it's going to get up. HP is incredibly talented, and I think we're going to see some great things done with this acquisition.
What do you think about Palm's "death"?
