HP to Buy Palm for $1.2 Billion
Nancy Gohring of IDG News Service writes that HP plans to buy Palm for $1.2 billion, potentially rescuing Palm's webOS from obscurity. The Palm Pre and Pixi smartphones, which run webOS, haven't competed well with the iPhone or smartphones based on Google's Android operating system, and Palm has been looking for a buyer. HP hopes to use Palm's technology to power both smartphones and a new generation of tablet-sized devices. Despite its size, HP hasn't been a significant player in either market, and however good webOS may be, it wasn't enough to slow the adoption of iPhone OS- and Android-based devices.