I'm frankly perplexed.
I know Palm well. Their business was one of the first Locusts that caught my eye. I criticized their purchase of Handspring as a doomed-to-fail effort, and events bore me out. I watched them split up and combine again, and learned from them how hard it is to make a Locust succeed.
HP put a lot of money on the table for Palm and I can only wonder what it was they wanted. Some candidates:
- The Palm operating system. This would, theoretically, give them independence from Windows for their mobile devices. The newspaper noted that HP and Microsoft have broken off their efforts to create an iPad equivalent so there's a possible rift between the two. I doubt much will come of this, though.
- Access to supply chain partners, especially the mobile phone companies. I've read some speculation about this but I am deeply skeptical. Hardware is the way to open up a relationship with the carriers, as Apple has taught us. I've not seen anything to indicate that Palm's hardware was superior to or distinctly different from the phones of its rivals.
- Key talent hidden in Palm. This is the most plausible candidate but it's impossible to know what that might be, sitting at my computer here in Buffalo, NY.
I'm not sure what part(s) of Palm will help them, but I think HP spent $1.2b to acquire a Palm resource that, on its own, might not be that significant, but when combined with other HP assets, will make HP's value proposition more compelling.
It's their way of doing things.