14 DAY TRIAL // Started as a rumor at the beginning of the year, HP has just announced that it has finished the acquisition of Palm at a price of $5.70 per share. It seems the main reason behind the transaction, besides Palm's financial difficulties, would be the webOS platform, which HP sees as having great potential on the mobile phone market.
Thus, the company stated that the closed deal gives the Palo Alto-based firm an important headway into the smartphone market thanks to Palm’s innovative webOS platform and family of smartphones. “With webOS, HP will deliver its customers a unique and compelling experience across smartphones and other mobility products,” said Todd Bradley, executive vice president, Personal Systems Group, HP. “This allows us the opportunity to fully engage in growing our smartphone family offering and the footprint of webOS.”
Furthermore, HP also said that an important number of intellectual properties from the smartphone pioneer Palm would add to the fast development of the new webOS platform. We should expect HP's financial strength to back up Palm’s award-winning webOS platform, as well as its acclaimed Pre and Pixi smartphone product lines, to enhance the former’s ability to be more aggressive in the highly profitable, $100 billion smartphone and connected mobile device markets.
“With HP’s full backing and global strengths, I’m confident that webOS will be able to reach its full potential,” stated Rubinstein. ”This agreement will accelerate the development of this incredible platform with new resources, scale and support from a world-respected brand.”
Palm will remain responsible for the webOS software development and webOS-based products that will range from smartphones to tablets and netbooks, while HP will assure the profitability of company's portfolio.