HP has announced that it will be purchasing Palm, and has also dropped some pretty big hints it will developing tablets and netbooks based on webOS.
One of the most attractive things about the acquisition of Palm for HP is the control of webOS, Palm's custom-built smartphone platform.
And on a conference call to announce the deal, HP was asked why it has chosen to invest this money in Palm when it could just develop new devices based on Android or a similar mobile OS.
HP responded by saying that "between smartphones, slates, and potentially netbooks there are a lot of opportunities here."
Still loving Microsoft
The company also reiterated that it will be maintaining the close relationship it has with Microsoft on the iPaq line, which traditionally runs on Windows Mobile.
However HP has said it will up the investment in R&D (with Palm spending £125m in that area), showing that it clearly means to bring this brand up to scratch, and likely with a few new categories of devices as well.
HP added on the call: "We intend to invest heavily in product development, and we intend to drive this market."
We're excited to see what will happen with this deal – we had such high hopes for Palm after the Pre, but it seems that plan ran out of steam somewhat, so the new deal with HP might just lead to another huge player in the smartphone market.
Via Engadget
