HP has announced an offer of $5.70 per share or $1.2 billion, for Palm Inc. Palm isn't going to say no, and there will be no review of competitive advantage because the two companies barely blip the radar in the handheld space, so it's pretty much a done deal.
I'm still trying to figure out what it all will mean, ultimately. For time being, however, it should be safe to say that Palm is not dead yet.
It's a move that has a lot of interest and potential implications for many key players, including Microsoft, Apple, RIM and Google.
I couldn't see the Palm webOS, in its current feature-set, replacing my old Treo. But, if HP does more than just slap the OS on their own hardware, there might be some hope that the more technical tenacity of the old Palm OS 5 might return, especially as early indications are that HP is looking to compete more squarely with RIM's Blackberry in the professional space (Blackberry, for all its communicative stability, is bland and not the most app-rich platform/environment). Where Palm originally owned the professional space and fell off the map allowing RIM to step in, perhaps they might return to the battle field with a new platform that can carry the workload.
Further, for non-Apple people, Palm OS could be that entertainment platform for media and games due to its superior multitasking and seamless web integration.
HP appears to provide not only a big infusion, but the global reach, brand respect, and strategic synergy that gives Palm some meaning in a bigger picture, a bigger picture they simply couldn't create for themselves.
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