Quick Take: HP to buy Palm for $1.2B
There’s going to be a lot of analysis to come, but here’s my first reactions to the news that HP will buy Palm for $1.2B.
For one, I’m glad that Palm is going to survive. The WebOS received a lot of acclaim as a technology, yet it never took off. The PDK they release just a few months ago has helped make WebOS a great platform for developers. But Palm never had the resources to put behind the company and the developer community to really allow Palm to compete on a relatively level playing field. That changes today.
And let me talk more about how HP will supercharge WebOS’ position in the minds of the developer. The most important part of this new pairing is HP’s position within the enterprise. HP will now make a big push to make their new WebOS-based devices (phones and tablets, count on it) in the hands of the enterprise user. This will encourage developers to embrace the WebOS and start porting apps to it in force in order to reach the enterprise. This is very bad news in my mind for RIM and Microsoft who finally thought they had something with their new Windows Phone 7 OS to be launched at the end of year. As they say, timing is everything.
OK, time for a quick take on how this impacts the other players in the industry:
Limited impact:
- Apple: Probably not that much of an impact. Apple never really targeted the enterprise buyer, although is first in the hearts of many professionals who work in the enterprise. They have a very loyal, fanatical following and there’s no way that this announcement creates even a blip on the radar.
- Google: Pretty similar story to Apple, although without the fanatical following (except perhaps in the developer community). Google is still well positioned and also will be greatly unaffected.
Ooh, are they screwed:
- RIM: Even with the impending release of the Blackberry OS 6, they are in for the fight of their life. I truly believe the future of the company may be in doubt for the first time. RIM has lived on the enterprise and has been the defacto standard for many companies. But again I come back to HP’s power in the enterprise and this does not bode well.
- Dell: Their entry into the market is now still-born. ‘nuf fsaid.
- Microsoft: All of a sudden the fact that the end-of-year release of the new Windows Phone7 OS is a gigantic problem. HP was not only a large partner for Microsoft from an OS perspective, they’re going to be going gangbusters on marketing an excellent OS and product before the first new Windows Phone sees the light of day (unless its left in a bar by accident). This impacts not just Microsoft’s phone strategy, but their plans of introducing Windows7 tablets into the market. Remember that CES announcement of the HP Slate powered by Windows7? No more.
- Nokia: Are they even in the smartphone business anymore? MeeGo is effectively dead and perhaps Nokia becomes a Europe/EMEA-only player. Good luck with margins in the African sub-continent.
One last thought. This might also be good news for Adobe. Flash 10.1 mobile is scheduled to be supported by Palm’s WebOS, so this will be another beachhead for them against Apple.
So what do you think the impact will be? Did I miss anything? Please add your thoughts in the comments.
It’s early days, but I’ll stand by my tweeted comparison to the HP purchase of Compaq whereby HP got some interesting technology from Compaq, DEC and Tandem, all under the Compaq banner at the time. These included theiPaq (both WindowsCE & PalmOS) with expansion sleds to combat Hanspring’s cartridges, VMS, Alpha/Laser2000 CPU and server clustering. None of which had the impact in the enterprise market for which HP hoped.
Around that time, we did our first mobile BI project using PalmVx, Novatel/Omnisky, AvantGo, Cognos, Oracle & HP-UX
Ah, those were the days!
I agree that WebOS is the plum in the pudding here. The Prē and Pixie hardware aren’t worth much with poor tactile response and worse build standards.
But does WebOS have the built-in enterprise tools [VPN, MS Exchange, remote management & wipe, etc) that exists in Apple iPhone firmware 3.x? Let's not forget the other advantage - apps. No, not silly ones, or even entertaining ones, but apps from and for Oracle, SAP, IBM/Lotus, salesforce.com, etc, as well as tools like RoamBI and iPad apps that will come to the iPhone, such as those from Appke and The Omni Group.
And as much as I despise the RIM UI, they have an huge lead in the enterprise, based 100% on fantastic marketing that convinced organizations by the thousands to put their email into one Canadian basket for mobile security.
HP/Compaq have had tablets for over a decade. Will they come out with WebOS MID, slates, PADDs [thank you Gene Rodenberry] what-have-you? Will such a device be able to garner the developer support that Apple has done with the Medical apps?
Time will tell.
–___
Joseph
http://Twitter.com/JAdP
-Nokia: Are they even in the smartphone business anymore?-
According to Gartner they are:
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/cell-phones/google-android-smacks-down-windows-mobile-in-latest-gartner-data/3829
44% of smartphones shipped in 2010 Q1 run Symbian (I presume a large percentage of those will be Nokia)
Andre. Thanks for your comments. I agree that Nokia is still shipping a lot of phones, but they’re more feature phones than smart phones. And while I can’t put my finger on the stats right now, it’s interesting to look at Nokia share by geography. Much stronger in Europe, Africa, SE Asia, especially when looking at total shipments. But what’s Nokia’s real smartphone offering that competes with the iPhone or Android? With respect to Symbian, Nokia thinks so much of it that they created the MeeGo OS in partnership with Intel. Neither development was encouraging. I really think they missed an opportunity when passing on Palm’s WebOS.