HP to buy Palm

Important shakeout in the technology market. HP has agreed to purchase Palm for around $1.2bn.

It does not surprise me. Palm is a brand that lost its mojo some years ago - I still remember having a couple of basic Palm PDAs to take control of my agenda and contacts - and that has failed to keep up with the changing times.

PDAs have evolved for the most part into today's smartphones and Palm has been kicked in the butt by other manufacturers such as Apple or RIM. Not even the release of the Pre - the latest generation smartphone which generated a lot of buzz and some good reviews at the time of its launch in 2009, and in which the company had placed all its hopes - was able to turn the situation around.

HP is still a leading player in printers, laptops, desktops, servers and business services, though it has also lost the battle in the increasingly popular area of portable devices.

By acquiring Palm HP secures some interesting patents and IP in general - including Palm's webOS - that might result in interesting products in the portable devices space. Time will tell if this is a good move.