HP CEO: Palm could end up a 'sub-brand' of the company
Given the way HP has treated acquisitions like VoodooPC and Compaq, this should come as no surprise -- but CEO Mark Hurd is at it again with comments about his company's recent Palm acquisition to German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine, saying that the brand could "move into the background" and become a "sub-brand," ostensibly the same as Envy and iPAQ (he gives Pavilion as a specific example). From a marketing alignment perspective, that makes sense -- though it assumes that the HP brand is stronger than Palm's in the target demographics that they're looking to sell into. Is that a safe assumption, especially considering how iPAQ withered on the vine? Hard to say.
