Why HP’s big bet on beleaguered Palm will flop

“Why is HP spending $1.2 billion on Palm?” Dan Frommer asks for Forbes.

“Not just to get into the fast growing smartphone industry, but to end its reliance on Microsoft Windows as the basis for its hardware gadgets,” Frommer writes. “This is an ambitious task, and could obviously have a big payoff if it’s successful. HP will invest hundreds of millions of dollars into the project, and will certainly make some noise.”

But the odds of this working are very low, and HP’s plan will probably not be successful,” Frommer writes. “The problem is that WebOS, despite its nice user interface and some nice technical qualities, is a failed platform. Consumers haven’t found a need to buy Palm devices instead of Apple or Android devices… And, as importantly, developers haven’t found a need to develop for WebOS, either. Without unique apps, there’s no reason to have a unique platform.”

Frommer writes, “So the odds are likely that HP’s big bet will be a flop, and that it’ll have to go crawling back to Windows or Android, whichever is the dominant consumer electronics platform in a few years.”

Full article here.

Source: MacDailyNews