HP CEO Remarks on Palm Plans

Speaking at a bank sponsored technology conference today, Mark Hurd, CEO of HP made some interesting remarks concerning the Palm acquisition. While we only have a small second hand, out of context quote to go on via ZDNet, he reportedly made some curious remarks concerning HP's plans for webOS.

Hurd said that the company isn't going to "spend billions of dollars trying to go into the smartphone business; that doesn't in any way make any sense."

Hurd further goes on to state that HP bought Palm Inc. for its IP (intellectual property). The follow up quote (also posted after the break) further elaborates his reasoning and desire to load up printers and other web-connected devices with a consistent software environment i.e. webOS.

Hurd added:

We didn't buy Palm to be in the smartphone business. And I tell people that, but it doesn't seem to resonate well. We bought it for the IP. The WebOS is one of the two ground-up pieces of software that is built as a web operating environment…We have tens of millions of HP small form factor web-connected devices…Now imagine that being a web-connected environment where now you can get a common look and feel and a common set of services laid against that environment. That is a very value proposition.

Thanks to Gekko for the tip.

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'We didn't buy Palm to be in the smartphone business.' - HP CEO

Gekko @ 6/2/2010 5:10:42 PM # Q
"We didn't buy Palm to be in the smartphone business. And I tell people that, but it doesn't seem to resonate well. We bought it for the IP. The WebOS is one of the two ground-up pieces of software that is built as a web operating environment…We have tens of millions of HP small form factor web-connected devices…Now imagine that being a web-connected environment where now you can get a common look and feel and a common set of services laid against that environment. That is a very value proposition."


RE: 'We didn't buy Palm to be in the smartphone business.' - HP CEO
Gekko @ 6/2/2010 5:13:33 PM # Q
The Palm acquisition had nothing to do with being in the smartphone business. Hurd said that the company isn't going to "spend billions of dollars trying to go into the smartphone business; that doesn't in any way make any sense."


RE: 'We didn't buy Palm to be in the smartphone business.' - HP CEO
hkklife @ 6/2/2010 6:40:51 PM # Q
I think that HP's shorterm smartphone (WebOS) plans will be exactly like their current WinMob strategy--- a small handful of barely-marketed devices that are rather ho-hum. In fact, that's not all that different from what Palm has been offering the past few years! HP is content to sort of let the smartphone line either wither away slowly (like Palm did with their PDAs) or will just have an annual refresh just to keep the Palm branding alive (again in the short term), carrier agreements active and keep WebOS development stimulated.

Long-term, I think HP is hell-bent on putting WebOS into tablets, netbooks, and printers (one-touch icon on an HP Printer's front touch screen to have new consumables shipped straight to your door!)

That said, that probably wasn't the best thing to say at this particular time. Smartphones are still the "hot" thing as we begin the 4G transition. For the forseeable future at least, HP needs to at least keep up appearances that they are in it. I wonder how far along the pre-acquisition Palm had their roadmap plotted out? Probably mid-late 2011 at most?
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RE: 'We didn't buy Palm to be in the smartphone business.' - HP CEO
Gekko @ 6/3/2010 4:25:21 AM # Q

i think Hurd views smartphones as a commodity business that he can't win against Apple, Android, Microsoft, et al. trying to make WebOS successful in that space at this stage in the game would cost billions that he doesn't want to spend - and they'd still probably fail. Hurd is all about the services - that's where the profit is at. that's why they bought EDS and why Dell bought Perot Systems. Hurd recognizes that it's foolish for him to waste billions and try to beat Apple and Android.

so if you own a webOS phone now - congratulations. you're out there on a tiny proprietary island all by yourself. and it's getting even smaller by the day.


RE: 'We didn't buy Palm to be in the smartphone business.' - HP CEO
e_tellurian @ 6/3/2010 9:13:28 AM # M Q
HP could sell Palm to those that would keep Palm in the handheld world Palm helped pioneer. HP was also a pioneer and the two pioneers working together can still be an outcome.

E-T

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HP CEO explains reason for Matias Duarte departure

rcartwright @ 6/2/2010 6:08:55 PM # Q
"We didn't buy Palm to be in the smartphone business" With those words, HP CEO Mark Hurd probably killed Palm web os development, any further phone sales, and the dreams of "we happy few" Palm OS faithful. Absent the unlikely event that it turns out that Steve Jobs and Eric Schmitt had conspired to hold Hurd's family at gunpoint, or a Jobs minion had enclosed Hurd in the Apple Reality Distortion Field Palm is done with the phone business and Duarte is but the first of many departures.

I had planned to reup with ATT and get a Amazon $49 Pre Plus and slide my SIM card from my Treo 680 to the Pre Plus, get used to web os and wait for the the first HP Palm web os phone. Now, I may do that to get a better web browser while I wait for the Evo to come to ATT.
"Many men stumble across the truth, but most manage to pick themselves up
and continue as if nothing had happened."
- Winston Churchill

RE: HP CEO explains reason for Matias Duarte departure
rpa @ 6/2/2010 8:21:52 PM # Q
Well, I am saddened. It makes perfect sense though as HP is a printer and toner company that also sells PCs (and soon tablets). Why bother with the phone business when Apple/Android/WP7/Nokia-whatever-they-call-their-os-now can fight it out. And HP can happily go on selling printers and toner.

Time to decide: buy a spare Centro or give up on Palm's beautiful OS.

RE: HP CEO explains reason for Matias Duarte departure
rcartwright @ 6/3/2010 3:26:35 PM # M Q
Well apparently the hostages were released or the distortion field failed. Engadget is reporting that HP plans to sell web os phones
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My comments

e_tellurian @ 6/2/2010 7:04:37 PM # Q
?

E-T
e-tellurian

Completing the e-com circle with a people driven we-com solution
WiFi & BT? No strings attached
http://translate.google.com/#en|fr|

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the end?

Ronin @ 6/2/2010 8:34:39 PM # Q
is this truly the end? it seems so.
In the Spirit of Umoja,
Ronin
RE: the end?
LiveFaith @ 6/2/2010 11:46:14 PM # Q
If this guy speaks for HP, then yes this IS finally the end. It is confirmation of that sick gut feeling I got when hearing of the buyout. When the deal completes, then Palm is finally done.

HP would be smart to spin off the name to another group for $$$ after they have milked the current roadmap of any remaining cash flow.

What a beautiful OS too. A shame that HP will merge it into the beauracracy and it's beauty will slowly disappear into oblivion. What a shame. :-(
Pat Horne

RE: the end?
e_tellurian @ 6/3/2010 12:01:56 AM # M Q
The good news is Palm lives ... in a printer. i think i am going to weep or laugh. If Palm lives in a printer it is not the end. We just have to set Palm free to be more than a printer.

E-T

RE: the end?
CFreymarc @ 6/3/2010 10:20:08 AM # Q
I have mixed feeling about this. My prediction over a year ago of the Palm Pre being equivalent to the Studebaker Avanti has unfortunately come full.

When Studebaker stopped making cars, its components were used for other transportation technologies in the following decades. With webOS going into a bunch of HP products, the transition is hauntingly familiar.

Five to fifteen years from now, we will look at the Pre as a "too much too soon" product. Ironically the name "Pre" fits the design way more than it was intended to be. When all your other current smart phones look dated, the next generation will still see a Pre as a "new" looking device.

Hold on to those Pre's! They may be worth something on Antiques Roadshow in a decade or so.

RE: the end?
Gekko @ 6/3/2010 12:23:53 PM # Q
>Five to fifteen years from now, we will look at the Pre as a "too much too soon" product. Ironically the name "Pre" fits the design way more than it was intended to be. When all your other current smart phones look dated, the next generation will still see a Pre as a "new" looking device.

you're delusional. the Pre was a too little too late piece of buggy laggy plasticky gimmicky garbage as evidenced by the product/company failing and having to be bought out to be "saved". no more revisionist history please.

RE: the end?
richf @ 6/3/2010 2:46:14 PM # Q
Really now Gekko, how do you actually feel about the Pre?

Just kidding.
Have a nice day!
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RE: the end?
CFreymarc @ 6/3/2010 3:01:28 PM # Q
Gekko, you don't know history well either. The Avanti was way ahead of its time and like the Pre, it was cheapened up by the accountants that made it a mundane product and cut apart from car reviewers that were still obsessed with fishtail lights.

I'll stick by my "delusional" view of this. The Pre was a breakthrough product WAY ahead of its time. Ten years from now, the Pre will be seen a something that should have happened but the market wasn't ready for it.

Features like off-screen touch interface, JavaScript-based apps, pond stone-like design, supplementary LEDs enhancing the display screen, the non-linear slide keyboard and the cloud sync feature are brilliant concepts rushed to a market that couldn't appreciate nor understand it.

Those that only see the execution and how it works for them in a nascent viewpoint could only trash it. I'm glad there are differences of opinion here but I won't lower myself to insults and personality sniping.

RE: the end?
mikecane @ 6/3/2010 6:14:59 PM # Q
>>>Features like off-screen touch interface
- ahead of its time yet confusing RIGHT NOW.

>>>JavaScript-based apps
- isn't that Android too?

>>>pond stone-like design
- god no!

>>>supplementary LEDs enhancing the display screen
- Pffft!

>>>the non-linear slide keyboard
- huge design mistake

>>>and the cloud sync feature
- which everyone else has added or is adding and which will stab everybody who trusts it in the back one day.

>>>are brilliant concepts rushed to a market that couldn't appreciate nor understand it.
- Um, no.

RE: the end?
Gekko @ 6/3/2010 6:29:12 PM # Q
>>>>pond stone-like design

and Pre owners are thinking about skipping it right into a lake.

RE: the end?
BaalthazaaR @ 6/3/2010 7:28:03 PM # Q
>>>and the cloud sync feature

I think the way to do this right would be to have an option for the end user to set up their own private sync server. Those that couldn't care about security can use Palm's cloud, but the ones that want a more secure server could have a small device that acted like the sync server. Think Palm Desktop over the internet or a BES server except cheaper. Then all the phone needs to know is what the current IP address is... sort of the way Sling Media had it with their Sling Service. HPalm could have a server that would just keep track of IP addresses for each sync server + phone combination using a unique key. Or alternatively enable the device to sync with a DNS resolvable IP address using DynDNS or something like that.

RE: the end?
CFreymarc @ 6/4/2010 10:30:55 AM # Q
Easy to be a critic. Epically an unemployed critic. You don't like it but others do. Industrial design is as much as art as it is engineering. I'll stick with my guns and say the Pre was a head of its time like the Avanti. Enjoy your candy bar phones.
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How exciting...

treo007 @ 6/2/2010 11:11:14 PM # Q
It is now abundantly clear that this guy is totally serious in his belief that Web OS is going to allow him to put a vice grip on the printer industry. That's why he paid the price he did? Wow.

Look, I don't pretend to know the margin of printers vs. smartphones, but how unbelievably boring. And no, I don't think his company is in business to excite me. Although, those kinds of things help when putting your company in the middle of the technology Zeitgeist (the kind of thing that, most importantly, leads to profits).

That said, I think that the overwhelming majority of the population could care less what software their printer's 1-inch screen is running. In fact, you could make the screen 10 inches, and I could still care less.

Yea yea, they'll make tablets, but if you want one OS running across an array of devices, why wouldn't smartphones be one of those devices? I suppose he's not ruling it out, but I would be a little confused right now were I an HP shareholder.

RE: How exciting...
e_tellurian @ 6/2/2010 11:36:24 PM # M Q
With so much potential it seems sad to confine webOS to a printer.

E-T

RE: How exciting...
e_tellurian @ 6/2/2010 11:52:29 PM # M Q
Seems like a cruel joke. Of all the people that would buy Palm HP is good. I never thought they would put it into a printer. Am enlightened every day.

E-T

RE: How exciting...
richf @ 6/3/2010 5:36:26 AM # Q
As sad as I am to say this I guess it will be the final curtain. Would the last one out of Palm please turn out the lights. Hopefully we'll get a tablet with webos. In my mind it is criminal to use webos to run a bunch of internet printers. I'm hoping that someone on the board will back stab this goofy ceo just like they did Carly. I'm wondering if these geniuses at Palm asked HP what they were going to do with the company after the purchase. I'm of the opinion that preserving shareholder value was very low on the list when Palm execs accepted this offer. For me I guess the next big thing in my phone life is looking forward to the 2.2 upgrade for my Droid. I am also praying that Google will hire a couple unemployed Palm guys to fix their Android pims. OK nap time, too much disappointment in such a short time. HAHA, just kiddin.
Have a nice day!
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RE: How exciting...
CFreymarc @ 6/3/2010 3:10:52 PM # Q
To me it is "lights out" for Palm smartphones and frankly, I'm glad they are out it. There is a huge market for non-wireless carrier connected mobile devices that got Palm started and they totally abandoned.

I mean, why in the would was there not a webOS equivalent of the Palm TX? It was a well selling and simple to use device. You could "cloud it up" via a WiFi connection and no need for a carrier license. The Apple iPod Touch shows that you can yank out the cell phone and make a great secondary market.

My take is that Palm in fact is going back to its roots as a mobile embedded systems company with the faddish smart phone crap.

RE: How exciting...
richf @ 6/7/2010 3:22:01 PM # Q
Now here's something everyone will want. Who is HP kidding with these internet printers? Last thing I would ever want or need! Read here...http://www.precentral.net/hp-launches-new-webemail-enabled-printers. Hope this isn't the future of webos.
Have a nice day!
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RE: How exciting...
richf @ 6/7/2010 3:25:54 PM # Q
Why won't my link work. Will try again. Anyhow if it doesn't work go to precentral.net. Try again...http://www.precentral.net/hp-launches-new-webemail-enabled-printers
Have a nice day!
Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->Pilot Pro->IIIe->IIIc->M500->M505->M515->TC->T3->T5->Treo 650P->Treo 700P->Droid
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A Week With Android & EVO

Gekko @ 6/3/2010 1:25:21 AM # Q
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Hmmm

HellcatM @ 6/3/2010 2:58:45 AM # Q
I don't know what to make of that comment either. I can't see HP not making WebOS phones. I'm thinking he was just that they didn't buy Palm to just get into the phone business, and that they have other things they want to use WebOS for as well as phones? I think like a lot CEO's he just didn't word himself clearly. I've worked with a few CEO's and they tend to say something and hope you get the full idea of what they mean. Its kind of their short hand to there employees.

At least I hope I'm right. I think it would be a waste for HP to not make a really nice WebOS phone.

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Carl Yankowski laughs and laughs and laughs

mikecane @ 6/3/2010 6:42:23 AM # Q
Wasn't it he who sabotaged current Palm inventory sales by saying new models were imminent?

What HP just did is even worse. WHO in their right mind would dare buy a Palm Pre or Palm Pixi now? Sales are now zooming down to ZERO!

Damn, I hope they can dump that inventory on MetroPCS. They'd still make some sales there via prepay. At the prepay level, most people wouldn't care it was an orphan phone OS.

Reply to this comment

As for no smartphones...

mikecane @ 6/3/2010 6:44:19 AM # Q
On one level, that's disappointing and stupid. He now leaves the field down to two: iPhone OS and Android. There's room for a third.

On the other hand (level), just give me a damned webOS tablet already. With maybe a Pixel Qi screen too.

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my advice

Gekko @ 6/3/2010 7:50:03 AM # Q

my advice for all you rubes is to immediately move your data from the closed locked proprietary Palm silos and mom & pop black-box apps onto something more universal, open, standard, and enduring like The Google, Outlook, Word/Excel.

you don't want your data to be trapped forever all alone on that tiny proprietary island.

RE: my advice
mikecane @ 6/3/2010 2:34:58 PM # Q
>>>you don't want your data to be trapped forever all alone on that tiny proprietary island.

No, we want it in the cloud where some ten-year-old Chinese haXXor can steal it for the glory of the Motherland and future blackmailing of Americans.

You eejit!

I cannot wait for it to happen to you!!

RE: my advice
jms001 @ 6/3/2010 2:56:37 PM # Q
I waited two years on my Treo waiting for something decent to come along. Never saw it till the Palm Pre. I saw this as a possibility and put all my data on google. My phone's working fine and I can sit here another two years if I have to. Maybe in that amount of time, someone can come up with a phone I like.

Still, I'm still amazed that CEOs make such asinine statements sometimes. Its one thing to say that you are going to push printers or tablets or whatever. But why burn bridges if you gain nothing from it? You never know what the future might bring.

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hey bosco

Gekko @ 6/3/2010 7:53:15 AM # Q

it's looks like at&t has your balls in a vice - or they soon will when they change your contract.

http://gizmodo.com/5553418/att-just-killed-unlimited-wireless-data-and-screwed-everybody-in-the-process

http://gizmodo.com/5544851/att-jacking-up-early-termination-fees-to-325

how does it feel?


RE: hey bosco
Gekko @ 6/3/2010 7:54:34 AM # Q

vise!


RE: hey bosco
mikecane @ 6/3/2010 2:35:55 PM # Q
That AT&T crap has put a Sprint MiFi on my Get List and killed the 3G iPad for me in favor of a WiFi one. Damn them.
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Another Roger quote

gmayhak @ 6/3/2010 10:03:45 AM # Q
RE: Another Roger quote
2klbs @ 6/3/2010 11:17:05 AM # Q
Even McNamee can't kill that product's momentum with his endorsement...
Not "Pre-verted", nor Android Assimilated, BB Bummered...
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