As widely expected following the approval by Palm shareholders, the acquisition of the company by Hewlett-Packard for roughly $1.2 billion has today been announced closed.
The price, as previously announced, is $5.70 per share of Palm common stock, paid in cash.
Once again, HP repeats that it intends to double down on the innovative webOS platform and Palm’s line of smartphone. The company… → Read More
Palm certainly has been working on getting their app store populated. They kicked off a promotion back in February, which is ending soon, and has resulted in over 400 developers splitting up their share of a million dollars. Palm is also trying to increase interest in their applications by offering a 50% discount on the majority of their catalog, starting immediately. The good news for… → Read More
Now doesn’t this make you feel better? Mark Hurd at HP originally said that there would be no more WebOS smartphones… but now there will be! A Christmas miracle! He said: 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… → Read More
This week at CrunchGear, we’re looking back at some of our favorite gadgets from the not-so-distant past — old phones, computers, media players, toys… those devices that still stand out in our memories despite their obsolescence. Feel free to contribute some of your own nostalgia.
The Palm III was the first truly portable computing device I ever owned. Oh sure, I had a laptop at the time… → Read More
I’ve been bearish on Palm as a standalone platform since they launched last May and today the sadness-tinged chickens have come home to roost: Palm is now part of HP and, like the iPaq before it, the Pre and Pixi will slowly be subsumed into the company’s line-up. In fact, I couldn’t be happier for Palm. A recent perusal of HP’s line-up including their new Envy line of… → Read More
HP didn’t just drop $1.2 billion on Palm to simply sit on the assets. There have to be major plans in the works to leverage webOS and slam out some killer consumer devices. This could be huge for not only both companies, but for you and me. → Read More
As you may have heard, HP has just announced the acquisition of Palm for $1.2 billion. It’s a massive move that HP hopes will reshape the mobile industry. I got a chance to talk with Brian Humphries, HP’s Senior Vice President of Strategy and Corporate Development, about the deal just now.
“This is a great opportunity to take two Silicon Valley idols and put them together,” Humphries noted. → Read More
Palm right now is a disaster. Its sales are going nowhere, its market share is plummeting, and try as it might, it can’t even find a buyer. Industry sources tell us that a major restructuring and management shakeup is imminent and CEO Jon Rubinstein may be replaced.
This is still a rumor at this point, but it makes sense. Palm is suffering from a ton of unsold inventory, and it cannot keep up… → Read More
Palm has seen better days. Following the departure of senior vice president of software, Michael Abbott (who landed at Twitter), the company has been offering packages to try and keep other executives around. That may not be working so well. Caitlin Spaan, Palm’s vice president of carrier marketing will be leaving the company shortly as well, we’ve learned.
This was likely not an easy decision to… → Read More
According to a report based on a source from an Asia-based Reuters correspondent, smartphone maker HTC has decided not to bid for Palm after looking at the company’s numbers. The source, which reportedly has direct knowledge of the talks, said there “weren’t enough synergies to take the deal forward”.
That leaves Palm, which has been struggling to boost sales of its new range of smartphones… → Read More
Last Friday, news hit that Michael Abbott, Palm’s head of software and services, the man in charge of its webOS platform, was leaving the company. The news, which broke via a regulatory filing, made waves because it further highlighted Palm’s vulnerable position — the company’s stock price has been plummeting in recent months and it’s now attempting to find a buyer. The same filing revealed… → Read More
Woof. Analysts have placed a sell rating on Palm and are now valuing their stock, at least in hyperbolic terms, at $0. Quoth CNN:
Shares of Palm (PALM) plunged 19% to $4.59 a share early Friday, a new 52-week low. Investors are becoming increasingly pessimistic about the company’s future and several analysts downgraded their positions on the stock to “sell.” Two analysts even lowered their price… → Read More
In Greek tragedy, the flaw of hubris was the decisive plot point that brought down many great men. Palm, then, is the Oedipus of a modern tragedy, their efforts to rebuild hampered by a failure to see past their own greatness and a refusal to enter the market on the market’s terms.
To be honest, I was a Palm fan, then I wasn’t a Palm fan, and now am part of the chorus of voices bemoaning the… → Read More
No wonder Apple is suing HTC for patent infringement over its Android phones. In the three months between October and January, Android’s overall share of smartphone subscribers in the U.S. rose 4.3 points to 7.1 percent, according to mobile market share data released by comScore. Android showed the biggest single gain of any of the top five smartphone platforms. Apple’s share was virtually… → Read More
Mobile data is on fire. Despite a few false starts, we are now in the midst of a transformative “Open Mobile 3rd Wave” (remember WAP, and J2ME?). We are just in the early swell of the wave; the iPhone itself is not even three years old, and thanks to continued improvements we’re now seeing in smart phones, mobile OS platforms and 3G/4G networks, the raw ingredients are just getting better every… → Read More
Dwight “The Houston Tiger” Silverman, like so many tech dudes, likes the Palm Pre and Pixi and, in a way, doesn’t understand why Palm is on the rocks. However, he got an email from a reader who described her Verizon experience as sub-par at best. It began poorly: My original salesperson, upon hearing me say I was there for the Palm Pre, immediately mentioned that they were… → Read More
Poor Jon Rubinstein. After a strong, early push, Palm’s sales have slowed and revenue has dried up with $300-$320 million in Q3. Their “guidance” to Wall Street AKA how much they expected to make? $1.6-1.8 billion. Bloops.
The letter is over at WSJ but here’s an excerpt.
This morning we announced preliminary results for our 2010 third quarter. Since the quarter has not yet closed, it is too soon… → Read More
Handset manufacturer Palm has updated its guidance this morning, indicating that revenues for the quarter and full year will be “well below its previously forecasted range of $1.6 billion to $1.8 billion”. The company expects that revenues for the third quarter of fiscal year 2010 will be in the range of $285 million to $310 million on a GAAP basis.
In a statement, Palm says disappointing sales… → Read More
Last year, Apple’s iPhone nearly doubled its worldwide market share of smartphone sales to 14.4 percent, up 6.2 points from the year before, according to the latest market share figures put out by Gartner. The iPhone still trails behind Nokia’s Symbian-powered smartphones (No. 1), which saw their share decline 5.5 points to 46.9 percent, and RIM Blackberries (No. 2), which gained 3.3 points to… → Read More
Online music service Grooveshark is today announcing the launch of a native app for devices running Palm webOS, or in other words the Palm Pre and Pixi phones.
With the app, Grooveshark users gain access to its vast on-demand song catalog – the number of tracks in there runs in the millions – but also to the personal playlists and favorites they and other users have cultivated on the kick-ass… → Read More
Palm’s webOS is certainly one of the more polished operating systems out there; the others being the iPhone OS and Android. It’s clean, simple to use and attractive. However, it was available only on Sprint’s network for the longest time until recently when it arrived at Verizon on the Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus. Now it looks like another carrier will be picking up the new… → Read More
Holy wow! Relive the 1990s with the Palm m500 PDA in “good condition” for $19.99. That’s right. That’s like $300 less than you would have paid back in the days we still thought Palm Pilots were solid gold! → Read More
Popular location-based social network Brightkite has simultaneously released mobile apps for some Nokia as well as Palm smartphones.
The release of the apps follows earlier launches of Android, BlackBerry and iPhone applications. → Read More
When you think about mobile advertising, you might think the iPhone or Android are the hot platforms (thanks to ads like this). But you’d be wrong.
Some new December data from the mobile advertising company Smaato suggests that it’s actually Symbian that kills both the iPhone and Android. Now, I know what you’re thinking: that’s because Nokia, despite the buzz surrounding the sexier smartphone… → Read More
Not content with the Android Market website (and with good reason), a couple of Frenchmen last year built AndroLib to provide a decent online experience for people looking to browse available Android apps.
As long as Google doesn’t improve the Android Market site (or release a proper desktop app à la iTunes), AndroLib is basically the best website to browse Android apps, period.
Now the team… → Read More
John is down at the Palm press conference, and we’ll be going live in just a few minutes. Keep your eyes open, we’ll see what they might have up their collective sleeves. → Read More
We just did some live video from the Palm lounge where we saw the Pixi and Pre Plus, two improvements to the current WebOS line-up. Notable points? The 3D gaming was quite impressive and the design has been considerably improved in this iteration. → Read More
Someone’s gotta help Palm out. After the somewhat lukewarm response to the Pixi and the Pre, it’s rather surprising that Verizon would decide to place a big order. Word is though, that’s exactly what they did. → Read More
Palm’s App Store has reached a milestone. According to WebOS School, Palm now offers 1000 apps to its mobile users on its App Catalog. Of course, this number has to be taken with a grain of salt. Apple’s App Store has over 100,000 apps and the Android market has over 16,000 apps, making Palm’s achievement a little less thrilling.
The relatively small amount of apps for Palm isn’t surprising; Palm… → Read More
It looks like a Wi-Fi-enabled version of the Pixi is hitting Verizon next year, at least according to this FCC filing. The filing shows CDMA/1x EVDO and Wi-Fi support along with Bluetooth and matches with the expected P121EWW model number (Sprint’s is P120EWW). → Read More
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