Parchayi.com – Personal Finance Simplified

I’m glad that somebody bought PALM finally! I own no stock in either PALM, Inc. (PALM) or Hewlett Packard Company (HPQ) but I didn’t want to see WebOS die. I don’t own a WebOS phone but it was a strong contender to be my next phone. Of course my hope was that HTC would take the EVO or the Incredible and slap PalmOS on it, but well HP can do something similar.

Dell is entering the Smartphone market, Asus makes the Garmin Phone and Lenovo has a phone in China. It was an obvious next step for HP to have a phone and HP is a Microsoft Windows Phone 7  partner too. But if HP could have its own OS that is at least equal to if not better than everything that is out there along with PALM’s excellent patent portfolio, that is even better than having the Microsoft deal.

Microsoft has been going after Android device makers to license patents and HP can avoid those Microsoft fees if it has PALM. In fact HP can avoid Windows Phone 7 altogether. Personally even though I am very happy with my current Windows Mobile phone and Windows Phone 7 sounds promising, I expect that it will have teething trouble because it is a complete rewrite and not backwards compatible. Also Windows Phone 7 suffers from many shortcomings of the iPhone such as a closed ecosystem for apps, which are not problems with Android or WebOS.

All HP needs to do now is pair some good hardware with WebOS.

Every so often we see merger, takeover and failure rumors floating around. Then the CEO of the company says that the rumors are all false. Before the Wachovia collapse that happened on a Sunday, the CEO went on TV on Friday to let investors know that his bank was not in bad shape. Jim Cramer apologized for being duped.

Palm’s CEO also indirectly squashed takeover rumors by saying “We’ve said we have a plan that takes us to profitability.” However takeover rumors continued and finally Bloomberg seems to have confirmed the rumors making Palm’s stock surge.

It is sad to see Palm go and hopefully the new buyer will be someone who will continue WebOS, which is widely regarded to be the best of the smartphone Operating Systems with real multitasking, easy development and great features from ease of use to great looks.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it is HTC and they will put WebOS on something like Evo hardware.  My HTC Touch Pro is now aging but I think I can wait a while to see how 4G pans out before upgrading. I was seriously considering a Palm Pre Plus until PALM’s latest earnings report.