HP CEO: "We didn't buy Palm to be in the smartphone business"
By Nilay Patel 
posted June 2nd 2010 7:15PM
posted June 2nd 2010 7:15PM
You'd think spending a billion dollars on a smartphone company would indicate a desire to, say, make and sell smartphones, but you'd apparently be thinking wrong: HP CEO Mark Hurd just told investors at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch tech conference that his company "didn't buy Palm to be in the smartphone business," and that he's not going to "spend billions of dollars trying to go into the smartphone business; that doesn't in any way make any sense." Yes, that sound you're hearing is Jon Rubinstein's heart breaking into a million tiny pieces. According to Hurd, HP was actually more interested in Palm's IP -- specifically webOS, which he wants to put on "tens of millions of HP small form-factor web-connected devices." Sure, that makes sense, and it lines up perfectly with HP's plan to "double down on webOS" and put it on everything from netbooks and slates to printers, but hey, Mark? You should really look into the smartphone business when you get a second, okay? Just trust us on this one.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, Steve]
I hate HP...and its Products
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No way! They can't do that! :(
Stick a big ass fork in it.
Palm SmartPhones are officially done.
Hello HTC EVO 4G.
I WAS LOOKING FORWARD TO A NICE PALM AND HP DEVICE. MARK REALLY DOES NEED TO RECONSIDER. NETBOOKS AND TABLETS ARE COOL BUT A GREAT PALM AND HP SMARTPHONE WILL BE AWESOME.
I always like in engadget articles how the people write as if they're some major influence in the industry. When you have billions of dollars to invest in a market that you aren't a part of, go for it; until then I wouldn't say things like 'trust us' as if your opinion is even meaningful to them. They are a hardware company with huge investments and have much more experience than any of us.
@grindking
EXACTLY!! Just like when Volkswagon brought Lamborghini and afterwards stopped new superfast & sexy Lambos being built & sold... ooo wait...
This sucks.
"Eh, I was just kidding, we are releasing two new smartphones today."
I hope that happens.
GOD HP...wake up and smell...well yourselves..YOU STINK!!!!
This really does suck, makes me wanna throw this out the window and fall victim to the evo 4g....hopefully he was drunk :p
Huh?
Dear Mark Hurd: Boooooooo!
That is all.
"The smartphone market is large, profitable and rapidly growing, and companies that can provide an integrated device and experience command a higher share. Advances in mobility are offering significant opportunities, and HP intends to be a leader in this market.” -From their own press release, obviously. I'll carry the sentiment: stupid decision for HP not to build smartphones when they bought the IP for smartphone software. Sheesh....
'We didn't buy Palm to be in the smartphone business. We bought Palm to BE the smartphone business.'
Way to fuck that up HP.
re-tweeted @ http://twitter.com/mobilityblog
This sounds.. fucking brilliant!!
C'mon folks, this CEO is onto something! I say we all get our moneys together, buy the Ferrari brand and instead of making superfast sports cars how about... MINIVANS AND SUVS!! Eh? Eh? ;)
All that freakin' out for nothing:
http://www.precentral.net/ceos-say-darndest-things-smartphones-are-just-another-connected-device-us
@GMoney749
Yeah, I was wondering when he was going to throw out his retraction.
So maybe they throw out some half-assed WebOS phone and then call it quits. No difference to me either way, I'm still disappointed. My Pre (not plus) is wanting to be replaced, and I was hoping to stick with WebOS.
@GMoney749
"For example, building a smartphone or a phone of any type is not a particularly complicated engineering feat - and I don't mean that to be demeaning to anybody in the phone business. The more important part is the intellectual property ecosystem of IP and the services that connect to it."
So what he's saying is that they're going to make crappy phones without putting in any real effort (since it's supposedly not hard) and then use services to create artificial lock-in and trap their customers? Sounds great.
I guess Mark Hurd forgot that HP is already in the Smartphone business (ie: iPaq) they just suck ass at it..
Anyone else think he looks like Michael Scott from Dunder Mifflin?
@WYGUY
No... It's just you.
Mark my words: WebOS is the new AmigaOS. In the sense that they'll first kill it, and then rape its corpse and memory for decades to come.
Mark Hurd=Tool.
Does he carry a beeper with him as well?
It's crazy that the author of this story took Mark Hurd's words and basically proceeded to raise alarm amongst all these readers for, most likely, no reason. He's not saying HP's not going to make webOS smart phones, he's saying that HP didn't purchase Palm only to get in the smart phone business. From the very beginning, HP said they are interested in putting webOS on a number of form factors, INCLUDING smart phones. This is just him emphasizing the fact that the Palm buy wasn't only to get in the smart phone game. Them being able to put webOS on other devices is very important for increasing webOS's popularity.
I'm excited to see what kind of phones we'll see from HP/Palm, as well as the other HP products that will be using webOS. People should relax and just wait for the good stuff.
That's :hilarious:
Here's the bottom line analysis: HP plans on making WebOS the center of an interconnected world. Don't forget, HP runs things like Snapfish, etc. They envision an OS that coordinates cloud-based services to the extreme. One has to believe that this includes phones.
The rub is it's unclear how much innovation HP plans in the smartphone arena itself - certainly based on Hurd's statements it's doubtful from a hardware perspective. However, WebOS is at the heart of their plans, and was developed as a smartphone/tablet OS, so it seems pretty likely that this class of device (amongst the dozens of others they plan to have interconnected via WebOS) will exist in their portfolio. Whether they manufacture the hardware themselves or license the OS to others to stick on outsources hardware remains to be seen.
But for Palm Pre/Pixi owners, you should be excited that the OS is going to evolve probably at a much faster and broader rate. It just that this evolution might not address or be that concerned with all the phone and organizer-type issues that are still rough around the edge. Hence the departure of Mattias Duarte if I had to guess.
I called this about a month ago when they announced HP would be buying out Palm. I knew HP would drive Palm down to the ground instead of giving them a boost up.
HP is honestly one of those companies I genuinely dislike. They're never interesting, often make decisions I disagree with, and most of their products I've owned have been subpar in quality.
I'm not happy about this at all.
This should've been filed as a "CE Oh, no he didn't!"
The mobile marketplace is just simply too big and growing too fast for any company to ignore, even for someone as big as HP. They will come around. Especially when they will or forced to have to look at the ROI of 1 billion $.
I know this was "settled" already but I just got this from HP in regards to my email I sent to Mark via the hp webstite..
When we look at the market, we see an array of interconnected devices, including tablets, printers and,of course, smartphones. We believe webOS can become the backbone for many of HP's small form factor devises, and we expect to expand weOS's footprint beyond just the smartphone market, all while leveraging our financial strenght, scale and global reach to grow in smartphones.
CEO Customer Relations
Maybe they should have taken $50 of that $1.4billion and invested in a spell checker.