HP’s Palm acquisition could be good news for Palm owners

While it’s early days in the acquisition by computing giant HP of the smart phone-PDA pioneer Palm, the deal, if consummated, promises good news for owners—and would-be owners—of Palm’s Pre phone, the TX PDA, and webOS operating systems.

For one, it will give Palm resources it sorely needs, especially in marketing and distribution. The Pre is a great little phone (its junior sibling, the Pixi, not so much) and their webOS operating system is one of the best mobile platforms we've ever tested, particularly in the way it smartly integrates the user’s contacts and calendaring data with social networks and other Web-based apps. But there are only a few thousand webOS applications, compared with hundreds of thousands for deeper-pocketed competitors like Apple and Google.

The problem: Palm’s been more successful at creating products than at supporting and marketing them. That’s disappointed many consumers who love their Palms, and discouraged others from buying the devices at all, which is probably why Verizon last month slashed prices on the Pre and Pixi.

At the teleconference to investors yesterday, announcing the acquisition, HP exec Tom Bradley stressed that his company would beef up support for its Palm in marketing, production and distribution, and software developer support.

That's just the kind of help Palm needs, and that could eventually encourage software companies to develop more and better Palm apps and manufacturers—including of course HP—to develop more products that use webOS.

One of those could well be HP's upcoming tablet computer, and would-be iPad killer, the Slate. It’s purportedly slated (so to speak) to run Microsoft's Windows 6.5 OS. But that operating system is now doomed, and set for replacement by the Zune-based Windows Phone 7. All of which seems to open up the possibility that Palm's webOS will be powering the Slate, at least as an alternative to the new Windows OS.

PDA fans (yes, there are some left) who lament last year's demise of the Palm's very capable TX device may benefit from an HP acquisition, since HP's Windows CE-powered iPAQ PDAs are very much like the TX, complete with a large, 4.in. touch screen. Wouldn't it be grand if iPAQ PDAs were refurbished to use the webOS operating system?

However, it’s unclear what might happen to the smart phone version of the iPAQ. Known as the Glisten, and available on AT&T for $375 with a two-year contract, the phone has an old-style Palm Treo look, with a relatively small 2.5-in. screen and chiclette-style keyboard.

Of course, anything could happen before the deal is finalized, which HP predicts for the third quarter of the year. Among the wild-card possibilities I foresee: Blackberry-maker RIM may try to outbid HP and cannibalize Palm’s fine touch-screen technology, which Blackberry could use, given the keyboard-driven navigation of many of its models.

—Mike Gikas

Resource:
http://blogs.consumerreports.org