Palm PDA’s were the first inkling of smartphones to come, and at one point had Palm riding high in the tech world. But in 2010, Palm struggled to keep up with its competitors in the mobile market. After much speculation over the future of Palm, the company was acquired by popular tech giant Hewlett-Packard for $1.2 billion. Though HP has virtually no experience with mobile devices, this acquisition may be a sign that HP is gearing up to try its hand at mobile computing.
With the power of HP now behind Palm, the struggling brand may have a fighting chance at a comeback, with better products and a new image. While the iPhone spoke to creatives, Blackberry to business professionals and Droid to tech geeks, Palm struggled to corner a market niche. Additionally, soon after the Palm Pre was released, reviews of the device showed that its hardware was riddled with problems. With many Palm devices only available on Sprint — the #3 wireless carrier, almost 40 million subscribers behind #2 AT&T — Palm devices quickly lost steam.
CNN reports that HP is currently the biggest computing company in the world, known for making quality, lasting products. HP remains successful despite much competition from Dell, and since 2006 has held it’s spot as the world’s leading PC laptop provider. Turning this same technology to mobile devices, HP can reinvent the Palm brand and make it a more quality product — and its dominance in the tech market can help Palm even more. When it comes time to reposition Palm, HP will have more pull with wireless carriers, allowing Palm devices to reach a much wider audience and make it a more competitive product.
In addition to mobile devices, HP ownership of WebOS could mean big things for its long-awaited Slate tablet. Though Microsoft software is being used for the Slate’s first release, future releases could see a WebOS-enabled version as well, potentially offering an entirely different user experience. Having WebOS power Slate’s system could not only ensure the tablet could contend with the iPad and other tablet devices, but would also be a great way to introduce the OS to users who haven’t been exposed to it before. HP has the perfect opportunity to have WebOS directly compete with the iPhone OS and Android, both of which are being used across multiple devices. PCWorld’s Tony Bradley makes a similar point, writing:
“HP can leverage WebOS to change that, though. The iPad is built on the iPhone mobile OS, which compares directly with WebOS and Android, not with Windows or Mac OS X. Palm’s origins in the PDA market make its WebOS platform a natural fit for a tablet to compete with the iPad–the evolution of the PDA concept.”
Even with all of the potential Palm holds for HP, the company still has a lot of work ahead of it. Currently, Palm only holds a small share of the mobile computing market, a weak 6.1 percent compared to RIM’s 41 percent. To truly compete, HP needs to reinvent Palm devices while continuing to provide users with features unmatched by its competitors. 2010 has been a big year for mobile – Sprint’s first 4G device was revealed, a new BlackBerry OS is on its way, and the iPhone 4.0 is due to go on sale in June. HP is well positioned to fit right into this timeline, hopefully bringing Palm back to its former glory.
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Comments
HP has no experience with handhelds???? Have you ever heard of the iPaq?